Real-time monitoring and control of a microgrid - pilot project: hardware and software

This paper explains the development of a small-scale microgrid, which is equipped with a dedicated wireless communication network and a real-time monitoring and control system. The microgrid was formed by combining four renewable energy systems (RESs) located in different parts of the university campus. The aim of the project was to collect data from embedded sensors in each of these RESs, and design and implement an on-line near real-time monitoring system to enable observation of their performances simultaneously. Challenges that have been addressed are 1) security of information going through a dedicated communication channel; 2) time synchronisation of the data packets, which were transmitted at the same time, but received at the access point at slightly different times; 3) capability of the system for the interoperabilty of different types of inverters.