A Distributed Management Scheme for Energy Storage in a Smart Grid with Communication Impairments

With the integration of distributed generations into smart grid, energy storage units (ESUs) are deployed to absorb excessive fluctuation in power flow. Data must be collected from sensors when making ESU charging and discharging decisions. However, existing ESU management schemes have not considered this need of sending data over realistic communication channels with packet errors. This paper proposes a distributed ESU management scheme that can operate reliably over error-prone wireless communication channels. The proposed scheme uses the Markov decision process to make local decision at each ESU, and aims to minimize power loss while keeping the voltage violation probability below an acceptable level. The scheme has been evaluated through extensive simulations. Results confirm that the scheme can operate efficiently over impaired communication channels. Power losses are reduced by up to 50% compared to a naive centralized scheme while maintaining the voltage violation probability below 0.005.