Energy imbalance management using a robust pricing scheme

This paper focuses on the problem of energy imbalance management in a microgrid. The problem is investigated from the power market perspective. Unlike the traditional power grid, a microgrid can obtain extra energy from a renewable energy source (RES) such as a solar panel or a wind turbine. However, the stochastic input from the RES brings difficulty in balancing the energy supply and demand. In this study, a novel pricing scheme is proposed that provides robustness against such intermittent power input. The proposed scheme considers possible uncertainty in the marginal benefit and the marginal cost of the power market. It uses all available information on the power supply, power demand, and imbalanced energy. The parameters of the scheme are evaluated using an H_∞ performance index. It is shown that the parameters can be obtained by solving a linear matrix inequality problem, which is efficiently solvable due to its convexity. Simulation examples are given to show the favorable performance of the proposed scheme in comparison with existing area control error pricing schemes.