Dynamic energy management of micro grids using battery super capacitor combined storage

The energy flow between source and the load of micro grid must be balanced to have a constant dc grid voltage. Due to intermittency in the natural sources and the variations in load, energy balance operation demands storage. The commonly preferred choice of energy storage in micro grid is valve regulated lead acid batteries. When batteries are used as energy storage, due to its low power density, the charge and discharge rate is low. It causes severe stress on the battery under quick load fluctuations and results in increase in the number of charge/discharge cycles. Hence, the lifetime of the battery reduces. The super capacitors have high power density and it can react speedily to quick load fluctuations. However, super capacitors alone cannot be used as energy storage as it cannot supply load for a longer time. Hence, this paper proposes a combined energy storage using batteries and super capacitors with high energy and power density. The photovoltaic (PV) based micro grid with combined energy storage is designed and the control strategy is validated for different atmospheric and load conditions. © 2012 IEEE.