A comparative study of Energy Management Systems for non-cooperative and cooperative Multi-Microgrids

Nowadays, Multi-Microgrids (MMGs) systems are emerging as one of the alternatives to enhance resiliency and sustainability of electrical energy systems. In spite of the obvious advantages of MMGs, it is necessary to focus on Energy Management System (EMS) in order to achieve optimal power scheduling and improve power system efficiency. Moreover, the power sharing challenges in MMGs and resiliency issues to maintain power supply for critical loads, especially during extreme event outages, still provide scope for further research. In this regard, a comparison between non-cooperative and cooperative MMGs based, respectively, on decentralized and centralized EMS topologies is presented in this paper. EMSs are developed specifically for a day-ahead optimal and cost-effective scheduling of MMGs. Special emphasis is placed on the minimization of the total operating cost and the resilient operation. Thereby, in cooperative MMGs, reward cost strategies are proposed to promote self-consumption and enhance resiliency. Simulations and analyses are carried out under different scenarios, including normal and outage conditions to highlight the benefits of cooperation between Microgrids (MGs). Ultimately, an evaluation metric is employed to quantify the performances of both MMGs regarding resilience and fault tolerance aspects.