An architecture for a microgrid-based eco industrial park using a Multi-Agent System

Abstract

With the bidirectional information and power flow provided by the Smart Grid, many new ideas are being promoted to augment and improve the energy usage in different settings. One such extension is the concept of microgrids. This paper proposes a framework and architecture for controlling the Energy Management System of a microgrid-based Eco-Industrial Park (EIP) by means of a Multi-Agent System (MAS), called AMGEM (an Architecture for a MicroGrid-based EIP using MAS). To the best of our knowledge, AMGEM is the first framework in the literature proposing a microgrid-based EIP by means of a MAS infrastructure. Potential benefits of using MAS as control mechanism are discussed throughout the paper with the previous studies on MAS applications in power engineering. Our study emphasizes on microgrid market control mechanism for both electricity and byproducts of the companies composing the EIP. Ontology of the proposed design, the MAS architecture, the Market Model and the Auction Methodology are all elaborated in the paper.

The Application of Ontologies in Multi-Agent Systems in the Energy Sector: A Scoping Review

“…MAS is based on the divide-and-conquer mechanism [17]. In a MAS, each agent has limited knowledge about its environment, and work individually towards a certain goal based on their local knowledge and their behavioral algorithms and interact in a cooperative or competitive manner with other agents [18].…”

“…The idea of using MAS is to divide a complex system into smaller and more related objectives and construct agents for these sub-objectives [17]. MAS can simulate and control large complex decentralized systems that can cope with the dynamics of the system, reduce the complexity, and increase flexibility [19].…”

“…MAS can simulate and control large complex decentralized systems that can cope with the dynamics of the system, reduce the complexity, and increase flexibility [19]. One of the most important benefits of MAS is its fault tolerance, based on multiple agents can provide the same services [17].…”

Quantitative tools for cultivating symbiosis in industrial parks; a literature review

“…One of the few found developments with respect to the electrical grid in eco-industrial parks has been an application of ABM. Mert et al [199] presented an ABM study to address the fragility caused by centralization in the EIP grid by using microgrids and possible integration of renewable energy sources. System dynamics, although not as frequently utilized, has been proposed as an alternative to ABM [196,43].…”

A multi agent system based control scheme for optimization of microgrid operation

“…The extension of MAS into power engineering applications is also detailed in [92,93] which discuss proposed guidelines and requirements on the use of MAS applications in power systems and the possible research areas where MAS can be applied. A MAS based framework for microgrids is also discussed in [95,96]. Examples where MAS can be applied to power systems In [97], MAS was used to simulate multiple microgrid market scenario involving load and generation agents with and without energy storage systems.…”