A Center of Mass Determination for Optimum Placement of Renewable Energy Sources in Microgrids

The objective of this article is to determine the location and size of the renewable energy sources (RESs) to be installed in microgrid networks that have multiple distributed generators. Since RESs have faster dynamics and low inertia, microgrid sources could encounter large disturbances in their power production when RESs are deployed. When the disturbance magnitude exceeds a certain limit, the stable operation of the microgrid can be compromised. In this study, the impact of installing a certain RES capacity on a microgrid is numerically evaluated. A novel methodology is developed to accurately determine the location and size of a newly installed RES in a microgrid. The proposed methodology considers the complete system dynamics in the process of locating and sizing the installed RES. The stability of the microgrid is examined using a modified microgrid load flow model. The proposed method automatically checks for the optimum RES placement to ensure minimal effect on microgrid stability. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is verified experimentally on a microgrid testbed.