A Cost-Effective Fuzzy-based Demand-Response Energy Management for Batteries and Photovoltaics

Distributed energy sources play an essential role in microgrids to meet the load demand. To maintain power stability in a grid-connected microgrid, a fuzzy logic-based management system has been designed in this work for a photovoltaic (PV) and battery-based microgrid feeding power to the load in the MultiGood MicroGrid Lab in Politecnico di Milano. For this system, a design based on 34 rules has been implemented for effective power management considering the electricity tariff in Milan, Italy. The main goal of this design is to minimize the power bought from the main grid during peak hours throughout the day under high-load demand while maintaining a stable power supply to the load and keeping the batteries within safe limits. The controller rules and membership functions are optimized to meet the designed criteria of this system which has been implemented using the fuzzy logic toolbox in MATLAB (2020b) and tested through simulations in MATLAB/Simulink (2020b) environment. Lastly, a cost analysis of the power bought from the grid with the designed fuzzy-based EMS has been performed which shows minimum power intake from the main grid while maintaining the state of charge of BESS in safe limits.