ABSTRACT
The economies of scale of conventional power plants have progressively led to the development of the very large and complex electrical networks that we know today. These networks transmit and distribute the power generated by these power plants to consumers. Over recent years, a new trend opposing this centralization of power facilities has been observed, resulting from the drop in price of distributed generation, mainly solar photovoltaic (PV) panels [1]. Owing to this effect, it is expected that in the future, small-scale industries and residential consumers of electricity will rely more and more on local renewable energy production capacities for covering, at least partially, their need for electrical power. This leads to the creation of the so-called microgrids that are electrical systems, which include loads and distributed energy resources that can be operated in parallel with the broader utility grid or as an electrical island. State-of-the-art issues and feasible solutions associated with the deployment of microgrids are discussed in Reference 2.
