A comprehensive review on energy management strategy of microgrids

Renewable energy resources are a one-stop solution for major issues that include drastic climate change, environmental pollution, and the depletion of fossil fuels. Renewable energy resources, their allied storage devices, load supplied, non-renewable sources, along with the electrical and control devices involved, form the entity called microgrids. Energy management systems are essential in microgrids with more than one energy resource and storage system for optimal power sharing between each component in the microgrid for efficient, reliable and economic operation. A critical review on energy management for hybrid systems of different configurations, the diverse techniques used, forecasting methods, control strategies, uncertainty consideration, tariffs set for financial benefits, etc. are reviewed in this paper. The novelty of reformer based fuel cells, which generates hydrogen on demand, thereby eliminating the requirement of hydrogen storage and lowest carbon footprint is discussed for the first time in this paper. The topics requiring extended research and the existing gap in literature in the field of energy management studies are presented in the authors’ perspective, which will be helpful for researchers working in the same specialization. Papers are segregated based on multiple aspects such as the configuration, in particular, grid-tied, islanded, multi microgrids, the control strategies adopted besides the identification of limitations/factors not considered in each work. Moreover, at the end of each section, the literature gap related to each category of segregated group is identified and presented.