A Multilevel Approach for the Optimal Control of Distributed Energy Resources and Storage

An approach is proposed to deal with distributed energy resources, renewables and storage devices connected to microgrids. Specifically, a multilevel architecture is introduced and evaluated for the following main purposes: to reduce the computational complexity, to deal with different decentralized microgrids, different decision makers, and multiple objectives. A two-level decision architecture based on a Model Predictive Control (MPC) scheme is presented, in which the upper decision level has the function of fixing the values of a certain set of parameters (reference values), by assuming a certain structure of the control strategies to be applied at the lower decision level. On the basis of such parameters, each decision maker at the lower level solves its own optimization problem by tracking the reference values provided by the upper level. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated. The application of the proposed control architecture to a specific case study (Savona, Italy) is presented and discussed.