Enhancing smart grid with microgrids: Challenges and opportunities

The modern electric power systems are going through a revolutionary change because of increasing demand of electric power worldwide, developing political pressure and public awareness of reducing carbon emission, incorporating large scale renewable power penetration, and blending information and communication technologies with power system operation. These issues initiated in establishing microgrid concept which has gone through major development and changes in last decade, and recently got a boost in its growth after being blessed by smart grid technologies. The objective of this paper is to presents a detailed technical overview of microgrid and smart grid in light of present development and future trend. First, it discusses microgrid architecture and functions. Then, smart features are added to the microgrid to demonstrate the recent architecture of smart grid. Finally, existing technical challenges, communication features, policies and regulation, etc. are discussed from where the future smart grid architecture can be visualized.