Synthesis of an intelligent rural village microgrid control strategy based on smartgrid multi-agent modelling and transactive energy management principles

Humanitarian and other development organisations are calling for replicable self-sustaining solutions to shared micro-utilities to ensure equitable modern energy delivery to energy-deprived village communities. Distributed smart microgrid technology allows for the efficient integration of sustainable resources to provide localised energy delivery at improved levels of reliability and resilience. Smart energy management in decentralised renewable systems requires computational intelligence to implement pivotal energy-aware/cost-aware procedures in decision-making for a conceptualised next generation Smart Village microgrid platform. Smart Village microgrid control automation aims at offering pragmatic and, intelligent control capabilities to perform price-based demand response energy management. This paper proposes the use of cascaded control abstraction in the implementation of a price-sensitive cyber-physical Smart Grid approach in a rural off-grid microgrid environment. The modular microgrid design integrates renewable energy resources through an adaptive control algorithm developed in a model-based design approach. The solution is based on distributed market-based control, using multi-agent transactive principles to navigate automated demand response. Multi-priority load clusters with the selective parallel control of non-intelligent device groups allow for prioritised supply/demand resource coordination. The proposed Smart Village solution operates as a self-regulating smart microgrid energy management system and by virtue of its market-based transactive reasoning approach is able to meet multiple operating requirements of rural village energy systems. Simulation results for this value-based control technique highlight the value of customer engagement combined with supply-, demand- and economic cost optimisation for hybrid renewable distributed energy microgrids.