Development of an Energy Monitoring System with Forecasting for Off-Grid Microgrids

The need for energy, especially energy from renewable sources, to be distributed and flexible has driven the development of microgrids in recent years. They have been a key technology in achieving the sustainable development goal for energy particularly in rural off-grid areas. However, safe and reliable operation of microgrids remains a challenge given the difficulty in maintaining the physical system due to the lack of technical know-how in the rural localities where they are installed. A monitoring system with power forecasting capability is proposed in this article to aid in the safe and reliable operation of microgrids. The monitoring system features galvanic isolation in both the ac and dc measurement modules protecting users and the monitoring system itself from the high currents of the microgrid power system. The measurements can then be fed into a machine learning algorithm to forecast the power output of the microgrid. Experimental data were presented to validate the measurements and forecasts of the monitoring system. Users can monitor and forecast the power output of a microgrid and conduct maintenance if significant deviations are observed between forecasts and measurements.