Optimal energy management in community micro-grids

In this article we present a simulation environment for energy management within community micro-grids. The ultimate objective is to optimally regulate the supply and demand within the micro-grid while ensuring that individual preferences are met and the overall energy consumption is minimized. This article will only focus on the demand management within the community. A simulation environment is developed using GridLAB-D for a baseline and an improved community model. The residential end uses, including electric vehicle charging, are modeled as stochastic and controllable demands. Energy storage capacity is also included. The improved model is used to evaluate different operational alternatives on the basis of individual residential units. Experimental operating conditions are established for the optimization of energy consumption. We show that with properly designed control strategy we are able to reduce the peak load by 8% and hedge against increased EV usage within the community.