The Feasibility Study of Ancillary Services Provision from Multiple Micro-Grids

The integration of Distributed Generation (DG) into the distribution network has acquired unprecedented academic and governmental attention in recent years. Because of the everincreasing energy demand, CO2 emission and petrol shortage, development of DG based on renewable energy sources (RES) registered a considerable growth in the past decade. Having the generation sources physically close to the energy demand is another obvious promotion for the idea of DG. The sources can be solar, wind, CHP (Combined Heat and Power), fuel cells, etc. and are small in capacity. To reduce output power fluctuation, energy storage can be used in conjunction with some of these microsources. Inter-connected, closely located sources and loads which as an integrated system can operate in parallel with main power grid or in an intentional islanded mode form a micro-grid. In a large physical region there can exist multiple micro-grids. Apart from participating in energy markets, an alternative way of making use of and making profit out of multiple micro-grids is to take part in the Ancillary Services (AS) market. This paper investigates the technical feasibility and difficulties of providing such services (in particular primary frequency reserves) as well as the potential profitability of participating in the AS markets based on a setup of multiple micro-grids.