Modelling of an expandable, reconfigurable, renewable DC microgrid for off-grid communities

This work is innovative in using a range of on-site data collected and measured locally in a commissioned field study carried out over several months to quantify current local resources and loads and estimating future ones based on the local population's current economic and domestic activities, and intended ones. This data is used in determining both the optimal size of the generation and storage elements through HOMER based on long term system behaviour, and to model shorter term system response to changes in generation and load using Simulink, ensuring system stability and grid voltage is maintained. Further novel aspects of this study are that power flow is controlled using adaptive DC droop control on each individual energy source to enable optimal power sharing with minimum power dissipation across distribution lines, and the droop control has been further adapted to the case of storage which can act as a source or a load.