IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2017 - 47

The DOE's OE office has been investigating such an integrated system under its project Structuring a Demonstration
Project to Integrate DER, Microgrid, DERMS, and DMS. The
objective of this project is to develop a deep and comprehensive
understanding of integrated control and management systems
for distribution systems with high penetrations of renewable energy generation. Recent publications from EPRI and
Argonne National Labs provide guidelines on potential architectural variations of an integrated system as well as establish
the relationships between the different components and identify core DMS applications. The overall architecture for integrating a DMS with DERs, DERMS, and microgrid controllers
varies based on circuit topology, utility operation practices, and
connected distributed generation. This project includes a sitespecific evaluation of the integrated operation of a DMS and
microgrid controller, and the microgrid site needs to be modeled along with the distribution network to which it connects.
This requires model size beyond what transient real-time simulators can usually handle.
For these reasons, reduced, multitimescale simulations
are required, as shown in Figure 5. A physical DMS and
microgrid controller will interact with select power hardware
components and each other through the simulation platform.

This test bed development will draw upon the foundational
capabilities necessary for a multitimescale test bed being
developed under the advanced distribution management system test bed project, also supported by DOE through its Grid
Modernization Laboratory Consortium.
The beneficial integration of microgrids within distribution systems requires communications between the microgrid
controller and DMS to plan and manage the transitions
between grid-connected and islanded modes and coordinate
the grid support microgrids that provide electricity generation to the distribution system when functioning in grid-tied
mode. DER group functions can be used to structure these
communications. Since 2012, EPRI has facilitated a focus
group of industry experts that is developing a library of standard DER group functions to monitor and manage groups of
DERs. Microgrids are examples of DER groups operated by
a single managing entity.
Microgrid transitions fall within three possible categories: planned islanding, unplanned islanding, and reconnection. The microgrid controller and the DMS can coordinate
planned islanding and reconnection events through use of
the connect/disconnect function, one of the DER group
functions available (see Figure 6). Any of the two entities

Data
DMS

Power

Microgrid
Controller

Analog
Multitimescale Simulation
250
251
50
31 28 25 47 49
48
46
26
45
43
23 44
29

24
22
20

42
21
40
19

18 135

Utility
Model

Microgrid
Model

6
66
38 39

ac
ac Power
Amplifier

e.g.,
Protection
Equipment

e.g.,
DERs

ac
ac Power
Amplifier

Power Hardware in ESIF (NREL)

figure 5. A diagram of a multitimescale test bed to evaluate DMS-microgrid controller integration.
july/august 2017

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2017