Provision of Ancillary Services by a Smart Microgrid: an OPF Approach

Ancillary services are all services required by the transmission (TSO) or distribution system operator (DSO) to maintain the integrity and stability of the transmission or distribution system as well as the power quality. Ancillary services that can be provided by a microgrid in grid-connected operation are frequency control support, voltage control support, congestion management, reduction of grid losses, and improvement of power quality. This paper presents the optimization problems used in the 3DMicroGrid project to determine the set-points of the different resources present in the microgrid to provide ancillary services to the power system in grid-connected operation: frequency control, voltage control and load curtailment. Results of the optimization of the pilot microgrid used in 3DMicroGrid are presented.