TY - JOUR
T1 - Load prioritization technique to guarantee the continuous electric supply for essential loads in rural microgrids
AU - Rajbhandari, Yaju
AU - Marahatta, Anup
AU - Shrestha, Ashish
AU - Gachhadar, Anand
AU - Thapa, Anup
AU - Gonzalez-Longatt, Francisco
AU - Guerrero, Josep M.
AU - Korba, Petr
N1 - Funding Information:
Ashish Shrestha received the Bachelor degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from School of Engineering, Pokhara University, Nepal and the Master degree in Planning and Operation of Energy System from School of Engineering, Kathmandu University, Nepal. He was also an Erasmus Mundus candidate at Department of Electrical Engineering, Frederick University, Cyprus, funded by European Union. Currently, he is doing his PhD at Department of Electrical Engineering, Information Technology and Cybernetics, University of South-Eastern Norway, Porsgrunn Campus, Norway. Before his PhD, he was working as a Lecturer at the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, and a Researcher (Activity Leader) at Center for Electric Power Engineering (CEPE), Kathmandu University, Nepal for three and half years. He was also involved in the problem-based-learning project funded by Erasmus+ program of EU. Currently, he is leading a project under the funding of Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Norway, as the Project Co-Principal Investigator. Till today, he published around 34 peer-reviewed journal articles and international conference papers and was assigned as a reviewer for numerous international conferences and peer-reviewed journals from IEEE, Springer, Elsevier, IET and so on. His research interests include Power System Dynamics, Distributed Generation Resources, Planning and Operation of Energy System and Electric Vehicle.
Funding Information:
This study was supported by the EnergizeNepal Project Office, Kathmandu University, Nepal (PID: ENEP-RENP-II-19-03). The authors like to acknowledge the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Kathmandu University, and Center for Electric Power Engineering (CEPE), Kathmandu University to provide the requested information, laboratory supports, and kind cooperation during the research work.
Funding Information:
This study was supported by the EnergizeNepal Project Office, Kathmandu University, Nepal (PID: ENEP-RENP-II-19-03). The authors like to acknowledge the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Kathmandu University, and Center for Electric Power Engineering (CEPE), Kathmandu University to provide the requested information, laboratory supports, and kind cooperation during the research work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/1
Y1 - 2022/1
N2 - Microgrid (MG) is one of the practical and best concepts to provide energy access to rural communities, where electric grid extension is not techno-economically feasible. Since the trend of load consumption is not uniform with a low load factor in a rural area, the required rating of the system becomes very high. Similarly, the generation is fixed for these MGs, whereas the load increases continuously over time. Such a system faces supply deficit issues triggering a high number of interruptions that may cause frequent blackouts. Hence, rolling blackout and load clipping techniques are preferred during the peak load period in most of the rural MGs. These issues lead to an unreliable power supply and low satisfaction level of the user. This paper presents the load prioritization technique to guarantee the continuous supply for the essential loads within the rural community. A day-ahead energy allocation technique is mathematically formulated and optimized to maximize the total hours of energy served. This technique maximized the hours of energy served to the load with higher priority followed by the load with lower priorities. From this study, it is found that the proposed strategy helps to improve the hours of energy served in the overall system, by improving the state of charge (SoC) level of the battery system. The result shows that the user satisfaction level has been improved by 5% through 100% of continuity for the essential loads.
AB - Microgrid (MG) is one of the practical and best concepts to provide energy access to rural communities, where electric grid extension is not techno-economically feasible. Since the trend of load consumption is not uniform with a low load factor in a rural area, the required rating of the system becomes very high. Similarly, the generation is fixed for these MGs, whereas the load increases continuously over time. Such a system faces supply deficit issues triggering a high number of interruptions that may cause frequent blackouts. Hence, rolling blackout and load clipping techniques are preferred during the peak load period in most of the rural MGs. These issues lead to an unreliable power supply and low satisfaction level of the user. This paper presents the load prioritization technique to guarantee the continuous supply for the essential loads within the rural community. A day-ahead energy allocation technique is mathematically formulated and optimized to maximize the total hours of energy served. This technique maximized the hours of energy served to the load with higher priority followed by the load with lower priorities. From this study, it is found that the proposed strategy helps to improve the hours of energy served in the overall system, by improving the state of charge (SoC) level of the battery system. The result shows that the user satisfaction level has been improved by 5% through 100% of continuity for the essential loads.
KW - Demand side management
KW - Microgrid
KW - Renewable energy
KW - Rural electrification
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85111880337&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijepes.2021.107398
DO - 10.1016/j.ijepes.2021.107398
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85111880337
SN - 0142-0615
VL - 134
JO - International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems
JF - International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems
M1 - 107398
ER -