Assessment of the Impact of Microgrid Control Strategies in the Power Distribution Reliability Indices

This paper proposes a probabilistic methodology to assess the impact of the microgrid control strategies in distribution network reliability. This assessment is carried out considering the primary and secondary controls of the microgrid in the islanded operation mode. The sequential Monte Carlo simulation was used to select the system scenarios resulting in uncertainties associated with: load fluctuations, load forecasting errors, distributed generation unavailability and intermittence of renewable energy resources. The proposed methodology can estimate the impact of the islanded operation of a microgrid on the load point and system indices related to yearly frequency and duration of interruptions. Furthermore, the proposed approach evaluates well-being indices to analyze the efficiency of the primary and secondary controls. The results in a host distribution network, with a microgrid of 38 buses, demonstrate that the islanded operation causes reductions of about 24 and 29% in the ASIFI and ASIDI indices, respectively.