Intelligent Fault Tolerant Energy Management System With Layered Architecture for a Photovoltaic Power Plant

Increasing of renewable power plants has raised the need for intelligent energy management systems (EMSs). The aim of management system is to reduce energy absorbed from fossil sources. In this paper a layered behavioral based architecture named subsumption is employed for energy management in PV based power plant with storage devices and active load. In the proposed architecture components of the plant including SC, PV, battery, and the grid are organized in different layers. Each layer is implemented as a behavioral rule that can independently perceive and act in the environment. There is a hierarchy in the layers where lower layers have more priority and can inhibit higher layers. The layers use a simple protocol to communicate with management unit. Using this approach, a simple, fast, extensible, and fault tolerant EMS is achieved.