Real-time energy management for cooperative microgrids with renewable energy integration

The reliable operation of microgrids is hindered by the integration of intermittent renewable energy generations. To overcome this problem, in this paper we study the realtime energy management for two cooperative microgrids with integrated renewable energy generators. We first assume that renewable energy generations and loads of microgrids can be perfectly predicted or are known a priori. In this case, we solve the off-line optimization problem and propose a distributed algorithm for the optimal off-line energy management solution. Next, by defining energy cost saving as the total energy cost reduction with proposed microgrid energy cooperation over the traditional case of no cooperation, we investigate how the distance-dependent renewable energy generation correlation between the two microgrids affects the energy cost saving. Inspired by the observed energy cost saving versus distance behavior, we further propose two online algorithms of low complexity for the real-time energy management of cooperative microgrids. Last, we evaluate the performances of our proposed algorithms via simulations based on the Tucson power system data.