Effective Microgrid Optimal Dispatch Settings

Active power control is one of the crucial functions run by the microgrid controller to schedule distributed energy resources (DER) in a microgrid. This schedule can be obtained through solving an optimization problem, so-called optimal dispatch, to minimize the cost of microgrid operation. To match all possible cases that can occur during real-time operation as well as to ensure that the optimal dispatch always reaches a feasible solution, some of the constraints associated with optimal dispatch problem are defined in terms of soft constraints, which introduces penalty factors into the problem. The user needs to tune these penalty factors, which might be confusing and cumbersome. In this regard, there is a considerable value in easing the hassle of tuning penalty factors. This paper first proposes a method to reduce the number of penalty factors used in the microgrid optimal dispatch problem. Additionally, the penalty factors are introduced in such a form that users can easily tune them all together with minimum effort.