Page 430 - Decision Making Applications in Modern Power Systems

390 Decision Making Applications in Modern Power Systems

In this chapter a DSM scheme has been proposed for the autonomous
DC microgrid for the building. The battery bank (BB) responds to the
changes in a power imbalance between PV power and demand within an
autonomous DC microgrid. The control objective of the DSM scheme is
to use the PV energy more efficiently. The DSM scheme shifts the defer-
rable load from nonsunny to sunny hours and decreases the building
demand during nonsunny hours. In this way, it decreases the charging/
discharging cycles (i.e., use) of the batteries. This is reducing the power
losses in the battery and improves the system efficiency. The DSM
scheme reduces the size of the PV plant, energy storage (ES), and capital
cost of the system.
The DSM is the form of programs that are implemented by the utility
companies to control the energy consumption at the customer side [4]. The
main tasks of the DSM are to change the use of load quantitatively by imple-
menting and planning for the utility or monitoring the consumer activities of
load utilization. Load management and consumer side local generation are
other tasks of the DSMs [5]. The DSM approaches are employed to use the
available energy efficiently without installing new generation, transmission
infrastructure [6]. The decentralized DSM mechanism to defragment of
home loads is based on grid prices and utility companies offer the incentives
to use the devices optimally which is in switch to reduce the heating [7]. The
heuristic-based evolutionary algorithm is used for day-ahead load shifting to
reduce the peak demand and reshape demand curve [8]. The DSM promotes
distributed generation in order to avoid long-distance transport. The DSM
facilitates the consumption of locally generated energy immediately when-
ever it is available for local loads [9]. The main benefit of a demand-side
management system is that its less expensive nature to intelligently influence
a load and the ability to build a new power plant or install some electrical
storage device. [10].
The most obvious features of DSM scheme are load scheduling of the
deferrable load from nonsunny to sunny hours to direct utilization of PV
power and approaching the desired state of charge (SOC) by controlling the
“cycle-based load” and other controllable load that makes it more advance.
The prototype hardware has been set up for the home including PV plant and
BB. The microcontroller is connected to the current and voltage sensors to
achieve the PV, battery power, and home demand. In addition, it is also con-
nected to the electronic switches (i.e., relays) to automatically switch “ON”/
“OFF” the appliance and loads of the building. The controller schedules the
deferrable load (e.g., washing machine, pump), changes operation patterns of
the cycle-based appliances (i.e., refrigerator), and switches “ON”/“OFF” the
controllable load (i.e., LED bulb) as per PV generation. The DSM reduces
the charging/discharging cycles of the batteries to improve the system effi-
ciency by reducing the power losses in the batteries. It also decreases the
peak demand that is the main cause of the large size of PV plant and an ES.