PNNL

Abstract

Microgrids and microgrid technologies offer an operations and control framework for realizing the needed aggregation of a growing share of distributed energy resources. As the number of microgrids increases, so will the incentive to interconnect them, leading to a combinatorial growth of potential operating states. At the same time, their growing complexity nudges interconnected microgrids conceptually closer to balancing authorities in the bulk power system. This paper focuses on secondary frequency control and leverages the conceptual similarity between balancing authorities and interconnected microgrids to adopt an automatic generation control design with some adaptations. Frequency control and restoration is demonstrated via several use-cases with switching and reconfiguration events.