Tariff Design and Economic Dispatch in a DC Microgrid

38th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 1452-1458
A cost allocation methodology for prosumers in a DC microgrid is proposed in this paper, based on the distribution of internal microgrid losses, energy cost and microgrid operator required income. Furthermore, an optimal economic dispatch problem is formulated to reduce overall microgrid energy acquisition costs and is solved using a meta-heuristic algorithm. The proposed approach is generic and considers different types of internal DC microgrid agents: consumers, independent producers and prosumers with behind-the-meter storage and/or generation; the microgrid connection to the main AC distribution grid is also considered in the model. The theoretical framework proposed in this paper aims to incentivize optimal energy management of flexible resources in a multi-agent DC microgrid, while is simple enough to be used as a reference in practical internal tariff designs for DC microgrids. The simulation results for a 48 V, six-node microgrid, indicate the effectiveness of both cost allocation and economic dispatch methodologies.