The significant benefits associated with microgrids have led to vast efforts to expand their penetration in electric power systems. Although their deployment is rapidly growing, there are still many challenges to efficiently design, control, and operate microgrids when connected to the grid, and also when in islanded mode, where extensive research activities are underway to tackle these issues. It is necessary to have an across-the-board view of the microgrid integration in power systems. This paper presents a review of issues concerning microgrids and provides an account of research in areas related to microgrids, including distributed generation, microgrid value propositions, applications of power electronics, economic issues, microgrid operation and control, microgrid clusters, and protection and communications issues.

State of the Art in Research on Microgrids: A Review

http://dspace.uniten.edu.my/jspui/bitstream/123456789/13396/1/Gridconnected-renewable-energy-sources-Review-of-the-recent-integration-requirements-and-control-methodsJournal-of-Cleaner-Production.pdf

Grid-connected renewable energy sources: Review of the recent integration requirements and control methods

Nowadays, the smart city is a topic that has attracted the attention of many researchers, engineers and even the public because of to its pervasive and vast effect on everyday life. The technologies used to realize the smart cities are often based on cloud computing. As a result, they have carried the limitations of cloud computing, such as unreliable latency, lack of mobility support, and location awareness. Fog computing provides different solutions to these problems. Although efforts have been done in the area of fog computing applications in smart cities, it is still difficult to find a systematic reliable survey that covers this area. This article aims to provide a comprehensive overview based on a systematic literature review of current works that have been done in the area of fog computing applications in smart cities. In addition, a different analytical comparison of related works, the trends, and future research directions are pointed out in this article.

Fog Computing Applications in Smart Cities: A Systematic Survey

A new approach to solve Economic Dispatch problem using a Hybrid ACO–ABC–HS optimization algorithm

Results of a literature survey done on microgrids from conception to installation is presented. The purpose is to evaluate the current status, major obstacles and existing research efforts directed toward establishing functional microgrids within utility systems. This review paper covers technical issues associated with frequency control and re-synchronization associated with typical distributed energy sources. Also evaluated are regulatory and policy issues associated with ownership, maintenance, availability, coordinated equipment control, obligation to provide adequate power quality, etc. associated with operating an islanded microgrid within a utility company's service territory. Actual microgrids in operation today are described. Benchmark test systems for steady state and dynamic simulations are also discussed.

Microgrids — A review of modeling, control, protection, simulation and future potential

In practical situations and under normal operating conditions, the generating capacity of power plants is more than the total losses and load demand. Also, power plants have different fuel costs and are not the same distance from the load centers. Hence the need for developing improved methods of economic dispatch of generated power from mostly remote locations to major load centers in the urban cities. Most methods adopted for optimal dispatch are either cumbersome in their computational approaches. This work proposes a fast and easy to use generic MATLAB syntax to aid in solving economic dispatch problems. The software component proposed in this work will try to estimate the optimal value of real power to be generated with the least possible fuel cost. This will be based on the assumption of equal incremental cost and the result compared to genetic algorithm simulation.

/pdf/economic-dispatch-of-generated-power-using-modified-lambda-55tacvcmlb.pdf

Economic Dispatch of Generated Power Using Modified Lambda- Iteration Method

Prior to this present era of privatization and commercialization, effort towards electricity pricing was geared towards allocating cost only to generation and distribution segments. This was accepted then considering the fact that power utilities were either wholly owned by either governments or by primary consumers made up of corporate bodies. In view of the current trend of transformation of electricity sectors in most countries of the world from vertically integrated utility to unbundled and competitive set-ups driven by market forces, there is now the dire-need to provide a fair and effective mechanism for appropriate pricing of all units in the power industry - generation, transmission and distribution. This is imperative as each of these sectors are now been operated by different bodies with little or no control by the government and many consumers of electricity, with attendant increased competition aimed at reducing cost while enhancing efficiency. From the experiences of most developed countries like U.S.A and many European countries who had embraced this new concept of power utilization, load is the most important price driver. An independent operational control of transmission grid in a restructured industry would facilitate a competitive market for power generation and direct retail access. The transmission system plays a pivotal role in the efficient delivery of electrical power to the consumers, hence is very critical in the emerging trends in developing countries' power transformation and electricity markets. To this end, a proper transmission pricing would motivate investors to build new generating capacity for improving efficiency. This paper, therefore, focuses on developing a novel transmission pricing algorithm using Bialek's tracing model.

Optimal transmission line pricing algorithm for a restructured power system

Voltage stability index-based reactive power compensation scheme☆

Automation of real time car parking system (RTCPS) using mobile cloud computing (MCC) and vehicular networking (VN) has given rise to a novel concept of integrated communication-computing platforms (ICCP). The aim of ICCP is to evolve an effective means of addressing challenges such as improper parking management scheme, traffic congestion in parking lots, insecurity of vehicles (safety applications), and other Infrastructure-to-Vehicle (I2V) services for providing data dissemination and content delivery services to connected Vehicular Clients (VCs). Edge (parking lot based) Fog computing (EFC) through road side sensor based monitoring is proposed to achieve ICCP. A real-time cloud to vehicular clients (VCs) in the context of smart car parking system (SCPS) which satisfies deterministic and non-deterministic constraints is introduced. Vehicular cloud computing (VCC) and intra-Edge-Fog node architecture is presented for ICCP. This is targeted at distributed mini-sized self-energized Fog nodes/data centers, placed between distributed remote cloud and VCs. The architecture processes data-disseminated real-time services to the connected VCs. The work built a prototype testbed comprising a black box PSU, Arduino IoT Duo, GH-311RT ultrasonic distance sensor and SHARP 2Y0A21 passive infrared sensor for vehicle detection; LinkSprite 2MP UART JPEG camera module, SD card module, RFID card reader, RDS3115 metal gear servo motors, FPM384 fingerprint scanner, GSM Module and a VCC web portal. The testbed functions at the edge of the vehicular network and is connected to the served VCs through Infrastructure-to-Vehicular (I2V) TCP/IP-based single-hop mobile links. This research seeks to facilitate urban renewal strategies and highlight the significance of ICCP prototype testbed. Open challenges and future research directions are discussed for an efficient VCC model which runs on networked fog centers (NetFCs).

Real time car parking system: A novel taxonomy for integrated vehicular computing

This paper proposes the application of a novel voltage stability index computation scheme to microgrid (MG) interconnected power systems. The L-index provides an online mechanism for computing and rating the status of the interconnected system into the utility-supplied, pre-microgrid, microgrid-supplied and island operational modes for improved operation. It may also provide a triggering signal to control the point of common coupling (PCC) converter to reduce network voltage violations in situations where the MG system has the capability to inject reactive power to the grid during periods of emergency or peak loads. Simulation results obtained with IEEE 14 bus system with MG later connected to load bus twelve as a PCC to the microgrid system, showed the suitability of the developed model towards providing smooth operation under both normal and distressed conditions.

Damian Obioma Dike

Papers

Economic Dispatch of Generated Power Using Modified Lambda- Iteration Method

Optimal transmission line pricing algorithm for a restructured power system

Voltage stability index-based reactive power compensation scheme☆

Real time car parking system: A novel taxonomy for integrated vehicular computing

Utilization of L-index in microgrid interconnected power system network