LoRa Transceiver for Load Monitoring and Control System in Microgrids

Renewable Energy Sources (RES) - based distributed microgrids offer electric energy supply in remote regions that are not national grids connected, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Nevertheless, monitoring and controlling these microgrids have proved to be a challenge for many microgrids’ operators. Lack of proper monitoring and management leads to loss of reliability and frequent power outages. Advances in Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) provide a foundation to design and implement an inexpensive bidirectional wireless communication system. This paper proposes a Long-Range (LoRa) wireless communication system to enhance the real-time monitoring and management of different nodes in microgrids. The system comprises a wireless, low-power, low-maintenance wireless network of distributed LoRa-based sensory modules which may be integrated with other monitoring and control systems such as photovoltaic power generation and battery management to deliver more reliable microgrids. The system may also be extended to successfully implement real-time load and tariff management as a Demand-Side Management (DSM) to avoid microgrid overloading.