Improvement of real‐time power tracking in microgrid using multi‐agent system

A multi‐agent system (MAS) provides flexible and intelligent control schemes for microgrids and their units. However, a certain period of time is required for a controllable source (CS) to change its output power, and the communication delay poses a challenge for real‐time tracking of CS output power in MAS control, an important factor affecting the transient performance of MAS power coordination. In this paper, we propose and emulate a new power tracking method based on the communication inside MAS about the change of output variation speed in every CS together with a timestamp for each change. The MAS emulates and tracks the total output power of all CSs in real time. Compared to the conventional method, the emulation results indicate that this new method has a significantly better real‐time performance, especially for a large number of CS and under more undesirable communication conditions. © 2017 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.