摘要

AC microgrid is a promising approach to integrate various distributed generators and energy storage into the power system, and provide renewable and reliable energy to the customers. However, highly intermittent distributed energy sources and varying load demands pose increasing challenges for optimal energy management in an AC microgrid. In this paper, a distributed cooperative optimal control method based on the discrete consistency algorithm is proposed to realize the large-scale penetration of renewable energy in an AC microgrid. The proposed approach is implemented through a multi-agent distributed hierarchical control architecture, which only requires a local communication network to exchange the information. The optimal control is achieved through a three-level control architecture. The third control level aims at multi-objective optimal scheduling, considering the factors such as fuel consumption, pollution in the form of emissions and operational maintenance. The second control level is based on the discrete consistency algorithm that optimizes the frequency and voltage references of droop control and also shares the active and reactive power accurately according to the particular demand. The first control level is responsible for reference tracking of the associated components. Compared with the conventional centralized and decentralized controls, the proposed control method offers increased robustness and flexibility in the AC microgrid control, and only requires limited communication between neighboring agents to realize a global optimization. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed strategy is verified in a typical AC microgrid model by using the PSCAD/EMTDC software.