Optimal management of islanded microgrid using binary particle swarm optimization

Microgrids are predicted to play a major role in the future, as they are capable of improving the quality and reliability of power in large power systems. The critical issues in microgrid are ensuring continuous availability of energy to the critical loads, and providing supply to the maximum possible portion under any abnormal conditions by topology management. An intelligent load shedding and fast reconfiguration of the system is therefore necessary in order to serve the critical loads and to maintain a proper power balance in the microgrid. This paper presents a novel strategy for load shedding and reconfiguration of microgrid using V-shaped transfer function for binary particle swarm optimization. The proposed load shedding strategy can also be used in the event of reduction in generation from the intermittent renewable energy sources, which is the major source of power in islanded microgrid. The strength of the proposed strategy is illustrated with MATLAB results on 8 bus Shipboard Power System(SPS) and modified Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions(CERTS) microgrid.