Distributed Active and Reactive Power Control With Smart Microgrid Demonstration

Abstract

Energy is one of the leading contributors to the economic development of any country. Energy plays a vital role for developing countries like India because it has to serve its large population [1]. Establishing a large power grid serving billions of people requires a significant investment. The world’s growing population has created a lot of problems that exist today. The most important issue of all is global warming caused by the abundance of greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere. Many of these greenhouse gases such as CO2 are produced from power plants all over the world burning fossil fuel. To reduce these emissions out into the atmosphere alternative sources of energy must be used. In the last two decades, both solar and wind energy have become an alternative to conventional energy resources [2]. These alternative energy resources are non-polluting, abundant, and renewable. In recent years, thanks to the advance in technology, better manufacturing processes have decreased their capital costs thus making them more attractive. This has led to the outburst of the distributed generators (DGs) and Smart Grid concepts [3]. The United States of America is among one of the leading countries in the world and as such, they invest lots of money and resources in the renewable energy sources [4]. Figure-1 shows Uzbekistan maps of the solar; (this illustration is provided by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)).