Optimal Scheduling of Spinning Reserve for Enabling Microgrid Seamless Islanding

One of the key features of the microgrid is its ability to operate independently in islanded mode and rely on its local distributed energy resources (DERs) in case of an unplanned outage of the tie-line connecting the microgrid to the utility grid. However, ensuring a seamless transition from grid-connected to islanded mode depends on the existence of enough installed capacity of DERs, proper energy management, and other issues related to grid dynamic behavior. To achieve a smooth transition to islanding mode and mitigate the disturbance effect, this paper proposes an energy management model for optimal scheduling of the spinning reserve as well as power and load curtailment. The model creates and detects islanding due to tie-line overload and determines an optimal scheduling of distributed generator (DG) spinning reserve, as well as load shedding and power curtailment, to ensure seamless transition and microgrid stability in the islanded mode. The problem is formulated as a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) optimization problem, and simulation results have confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed model.