Developing Microgrid Agents U sing Smart Python Agent Development Environment (SPADE)

Microgrids are revolutionary power systems that interconnect a mix of renewable power generation, load, storage systems, and inverters in a small-scale grid network. Operating microgrids while maintaining a consistent grid voltage and frequency during the islanding and disruption of renewables has been a challenging research problem. In this paper, we present a preliminary microgrid agent implementation using SPADE (Smart Python Agent Development Environment) as a powerful development framework that has been used extensively in many application domains. Agents autonomously manage and operate microgrid individual components. We model a multiagent microgrid system to seamlessly operate and optimize energy balance by coordinating the actions of agents. Agents coordinate energy demand, available renewable generation, storage charging and discharging patterns, and grid energy prices. They can detect anomalies, diagnose faults, balance generation and load, and maintain adequate network voltage and frequency.