An Interoperable Communication Framework for Grid Frequency Regulation Support from Microgrids

Renewable energy sources, which are controllable under the management of the microgrids with the contribution of energy storage systems and smart inverters, can support power system frequency regulation along with traditionally frequency control providers. This issue will not be viable without a robust communication architecture that meets all communication specification requirements of frequency regulation, including latency, reliability, and security. Therefore, this paper focuses on providing a communication framework of interacting between the power grid management system and microgrid central controller. In this scenario, the microgrid control center is integrated into the utility grid as a frequency regulation supporter for the main grid. This communication structure emulates the information model of the IEC 61850 protocol to meet interoperability. By employing IoT’s transmission protocol data distribution services, the structure satisfies the communication requirements for interacting in the wide-area network. This paper represents an interoperable information model for the microgrid central controller and power system management sectors’ interactions based on the IEC 61850–8–2 standard. Furthermore, we evaluate our scenario by measuring the latency, reliability, and security performance of data distribution services on a real communication testbed.