Fault quantifcation and mitigation method for energy management in microgrids using MPC reconfiguration

The current energy situation and the possibility of exhausting fossil fuels in a relatively near period, have led to investing efforts in the development of techniques that use renewable energy sources for power generation. A configuration that allows renewable energy sources to be integrated into the overall power system, advocates dividing the grid into distributed systems incorporating small-scale generation and storage. Microgrids are a well-known type of these systems. Control systems help maintain the reliability of the energy supply while minimizing costs. In addition, it must be taken into account that faults can occur in the processes that make up the microgrid. In some cases, the control system can mask these faults, even allowing the fault to reach an irreparable level. In this context, fault-tolerant control is a tool that enables control objectives to be maintained even in the presence of faults. If necessary, the control objectives are adapted to the fault. Furthermore, the fault tolerant control system needs to be able to detect faults, quantify their intensity and act accordingly. In this way it is avoided that small faults, that in other circumstances would remain hidden by the control loop, cause faults of a greater magnitude. This article proposes a fault quantification method based on parity equations and structured residuals that, together with a fault accommodation tolerance mechanism, mitigates the consequences of possible faults in this type of system.Copyright (c) 2022 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Automated summary

The current energy situation and the possibility of depleting fossil fuels have spurred the investment in renewable energy sources for power generation. Microgrids are proposed as a configuration that integrates renewable energy sources into the power system, with the use of control systems to maintain reliability and minimize costs. Fault-tolerant control is introduced as a tool to maintain control objectives even in the presence of faults, requiring fault detection, quantification, and adaptive control. This article presents a fault quantification method based on parity equations and structured residuals to mitigate the consequences of faults in microgrid systems.