Microgrid energy management system for residential microgrid using an ensemble forecasting strategy and grey wolf optimization

Microgrid (MG) is a small-scale grid that consists of multiple distributed energy resources and load demand. The microgrid energy management system (M-EMS) is the decision-making centre of the MG. An M-EMS is composed of four modules which are known as forecasting, scheduling, data acquisition, and human-machine interface. However, the forecasting and scheduling modules are considered the major modules from among the four of them. Therefore, this paper proposed an advanced microgrid energy management system (M-EMS) for grid-connected residential microgrid (MG) based on an ensemble forecasting strategy and grey wolf optimization (GWO) based scheduling strategy. In the forecasting module of M-EMS, the ensemble forecasting strategy is proposed to perform the short-term forecasting of PV power and load demand. The GWO based scheduling strategy has been proposed in scheduling module of M-EMS to minimize the operating cost of grid-connected residential MG. A small-scale experiment is conducted using Raspberry Pi 3 B+ via the python programming language to validate the effectiveness of the proposed M-EMS and real-time historical data of PV power, load demand, and weather is adopted as inputs. The performance of the proposed forecasting strategy is compared with ensemble forecasting strategy-1, particle swarm optimization based artificial neural network, and back-propagation neural network. The experimental results highlight that the proposed forecasting strategy outperforms the other strategies and achieved the lowest average value of normalized root mean square error of day-ahead prediction of PV power and load demand for the chosen day. Similarly, the performance of GWO based scheduling strategy of M-EMS is analyzed and compared for three different scenarios. Finally, the experimental results prove the outstanding performance of the proposed scheduling strategy.