Model and control of a combined PV-storage system into a microgrid

The actual trend for remote area is to use a microgrid composed of one or more photovoltaic plants and storage systems. To develop this kind of solution, one of the fundamental steps is to model the system through a software tool. The main goal of this paper is to propose a detail methodology and a tool to simulate a small-scale energy production. The microgrid is isolated and modeled in DC current, including the following components: photovoltaic modules, converters, MPPT algorithm, storage system and a DC load. The model is implemented in MATLAB/Simulink environment. Two scenarios are simulated to cover the main control objective, i.e. the equilibrium between power production and load demand through DC bus. The second scenario also tries to maximize the power production. Another achievement of this paper is the discussion about the Hybrid Energy Storage System (HESS), using supercapacitor to avoid stress on the battery. The microgrid is sized and simulated for an household of ten houses, fixing energy and power consumption for the city Porto Cesareo. This work covers the whole simulation process of a microgrid and could be an interesting base to develope more complex DC microgrid structures in the future.