Monitoring and management of energy storage in smart grids

The ongoing transition towards smarter electricity networks has caused a deep transformation of power systems monitoring and management strategies, especially at medium/low voltage (MV/LV) distribution level, where most part of energy users, producers and prosumers are connected. In previous works the authors have dealt with these issues and they have proposed a smart measurement and communication architecture for MV/LV distribution grids [1]. Such architecture can be exploited for various functions (power flow management, islanding detection and so on); for example, based on load flow analysis, Distribution Systems Operators (DSOs) can interact with distributed generation and storage systems (DGs, DSSs) for voltage and frequency regulation purposes [2]. In this framework, the integration of DSSs at users and prosumers level can significantly contribute to energy efficiency and increase profits from renewable energy exploitation, thanks to suitable scheduling of charging and discharging periods. On the other hand, to preserve network stability and secure operation, DSOs are interested in DSSs control and cooperation with the grid. In this framework this work investigates the feasibility of integrating simple optimization algorithms for the DSSs management and integration in smart grids scenarios, aimed at combining both prosumers economic benefits and DSOs interests for grid stability and secure operation. In more detail, a scheduling strategy is developed to plan the daily power exchange of the DSS with the grid, which is based on: daily production from renewable sources; electric load; hourly energy prices; battery model. The advantage of the proposed solution is that it allows minimizing the energy costs for the user, at the same time providing DSO the possibility to request changes in the power exchanges profile between DSS and the grid. The proposed algorithm is very simple, thus it can be easily integrated in DSS IPSs [1], without the need of adding extra hardware modules.