An energy management platform for smart microgrids

This paper is relevant to the important issue of planning and management of a so-called smart microgrid, namely a group of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources (DER) with clearly defined electrical boundaries that acts as a single controllable entity with respect to the public grid. The Energy Management System (EMS) plays a crucial role in governing the power flows coming from the different generating sources inside such infrastructure and can resort to optimization procedure and algorithms in order to minimize the daily operating costs. The main features of the EMS platform suitably developed to control the University of Genoa test-bed facility called Smart Polygeneration Microgrid (SPM) are here illustrated and thoroughly discussed.