Reliability-constrained Self-organization and Energy
Management towards a Resilient Microgrid Cluster
Miao He and Michael Giesselmann
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409
Emails:{Miao.He, Michael.Giesselmann}@ttu.edu
Abstract—Microgrids, as individual controllable entities that
can operate either islanded from or interconnected to main power
grid, have emerged as a promising solution to improving energy
efficiency and resilience to disturbance. When linked together in
a self-organized manner, a cluster of microgrids can significantly
enhance the reliability and power quality for critical load. With
this insight, we study the self-organization and decentralized
energy management of a microgrid cluster islanded from main
grid after a disruptive event. In the self-organization stage,
depending on the available generation resources, each microgrid
decides on whether to connect to the cluster; and the microgrid
energy management systems then “negotiate” on the optimal
power exchange with each other in the cluster. Once the power
exchange is determined, the generation and storage resources of
each microgrid are managed to guarantee the energy reliability of
critical loads and overall energy efficiency, through a scheduling
procedure followed by a dispatch procedure. The effectiveness of
the proposed method is revealed via case studies.
Index Terms—Distributed generation, energy management,
microgrid cluster, reliability and resilience, self-organization.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The ever-increasing demand for electrical power in the
United States has resulted in great needs for power system
expansion and planning. While power system expansion has
conventionally been carried out in a centralized manner, the
fast-growing interests in energy efficiency as well as environ-
mental concerns have given rise to distributed renewable gen-
eration, energy storage and controllable load, which would be
interconnected and managed in the form of a microgrid. Typ-
ically, a microgrid could be comprised of the following build-
ing blocks: a point of common coupling (PCC), distributed
generation, energy storage, controllable load and a microgrid
energy management system (EMS) [1,2]. More specifically,
a PCC is switchgear that switches between grid-connected
mode and islanded mode, which either connects/disconnects
a microgrid to/from the main grid. Distributed generation can
come from renewable sources (e.g., wind, PV, fuel cells) or
convention generators (e.g., diesel). Further, controllable loads
can be classified into critical loads (hospital, school, etc.) and
interruptible loads. In a nut shell, the microgrid EMS functions
similarly to a utility EMS, i.e., to manage the generation
resources to guarantee the reliability of microgrid - more
specifically, to maintain the balance between power supply
and demand with all critical loads served.
Microgrids have been identified by the U.S. Department of
Energy as a strategic effort towards developing resilient energy
communities [3], due to the ability of microgrids to operate
978-1-4799-1785-3/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
seamlessly even without the power supply from main grid after
natural or man-made disruptive events (e.g., extreme weather
event, WMD attack). Very recently, it has been recognized
that when multiple microgrids, which are geographically close
to each other, are tied together via a mid-voltage AC line to
form a microgrid cluster, the reliability of the microgrid cluster
and the resilience to disturbance of the communities can be
significantly enhanced. For example, the three microgrids at
Naval Base San Diego, Naval Base Coronado and Naval Base
Point Loma, respectively, have been connected to form a
microgrid cluster, and software-based testing and analytics are
carried out to assess the benefits brought by clustering [4].
It is noted that when managing a cluster of microgrids,
decentralized control through the co-ordination between mi-
crogrid EMSs provides improved flexibility and scalability,
and requires much less communications regarding anticipated
or real-time operating conditions. With this insight, we study
the self-organization and decentralized energy management
of a microgrid cluster, which operates in islanded mode
after a disruptive event. The main result of the proposed
study is twofold. First, we develop a decentralized algorithm
for the self-organization of the microgrid cluster and power
exchange between the microgrids. It is worth noting that the
decentralized algorithm can achieve the same performance as
an optimal centralized controller. Second, we devise the energy
management procedures, comprised of a scheduling stage and
a dispatch stage, to guarantee system-wise reliability.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. A microgrid
cluster model is introduced in Section II. Section III presents
the decentralized algorithm for the self-organization of mi-
crogrid cluster. Microgrid energy management is discussed in
Section IV. Case studies are presented in Section V. Finally,
conclusions are provided in Section VI.
II. M ICROGRID C LUSTER AND EMS F UNCTIONS
A. Microgrid Cluster Model
As illustrated in Fig. 1, we consider a microgrid cluster that
consists of N microgrids that are physically interconnected
by a mid-voltage AC line, which is thus referred to as the
cluster AC bus. It is worth noting that the cluster AC bus is
not part of the main grid, and each microgrid has a separate
PCC to the main grid which is not shown in Fig. 1. Each
microgrid can opt into/out of the cluster by closing/opening
the switch. Each microgrid EMS collects local information
regarding the generation, energy storage and load within each
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control in a microgrid cluster.
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Fig. 2. The three microgrid EMS functions and respective timescales in a
microgrid cluster.
microgrid. Moreover, the microgrid EMSs can communicate
and broadcast information to the EMSs of other microgrids
via a metropolitan area network.
B. Decentralized Control of Microgrid Cluster
It is thus clear from Fig. 1 that decentralized control is
adopted here for the management of the microgrid cluster.
Then, a natural question is why centralized control is not
utilized. Specifically, we note that there are several salient
features of decentralized control. First, decentralized control
results in the maximal scalability and flexibility of the micro-
grid cluster. Under a decentralized control framework, each
microgrid has its own EMS and reserves the rights to join
or disconnect from the cluster. On the other hand, individual
microgrids can have heterogeneous and private requirements
on reliability, reserves and energy efficiency, which may not
be met by using a single centralized controller. Second, the
feasibility and availability of centralized control may not
be guaranteed. If a centralized controller is utilized, the
extensive information regarding the time-varying distribution
generation, storage and load of each microgrid should be
collected and reported to the centralized controller, which
requires extensive communications over the metropolitan area
network. Further, under disruptive events in the main grid, a
centralized controller may also encounter outage and is thus
not available. Finally, it will be shown in Section V that
the decentralized control achieve comparable performance as
an optimal centralized controller, while requiring significantly
less communications between the microgrid EMSs.
Under the decentralized control framework illustrated in
0(06
Fig. 1, each microgrid EMS performs three main tasks in a co-
operative manner: self-organization, scheduling and dispatch,
at different stages and timescales. As illustrated in Fig. 2.
The microgrid cluster is self-organized or re-organized at the
0LFURJULG beginning of each T1 timeslot (e.g., one T1 timeslot can span
1 hour). In the self-organization stage, each microgrid EMS
“negotiates” with the EMSs of other microgrids on the power
exchange (export or import) to the cluster. By the end of the
self-organization stage, if the power exchange cannot meet
the needs of a microgrid, the corresponding microgrid EMS
can decide to disconnect from the cluster. The scheduling
stage is also carried out at the beginning of each T1 timeslot,
but the decisions are made for each T2 timeslot (e.g., one
T2 timeslot can span 5 minutes) within the T1 timeslot. In
the scheduling stage, the EMS determines the anticipated
generation by complying with reliability requirements. In the
dispatch stage, the EMS determines the actual generation from
the dispatchable units to achieve the balance between power
supply and demand. It is worth noting that different from the
scheduling stage, the decision of the dispatch stage is made
only for the current T2 timeslot.
Without loss of generality, we consider one aggregate re-
newable generation GR , one aggregate energy storage S, one
aggregate conventional generator GC , one aggregate critical
load LC and one aggregate interruptible load LI for each
microgrid. The objective, input and decisions for the three
microgrid EMS functions are summarized below:
• Self-organization: the objective is to form a microgrid
cluster, such that all critical loads are served, and in-
terruptible loads are met at “best effort” and at lowest
generation cost. The input to the microgrid EMS consists
of the forecasted hourly load L̄C and L̄I , the forecasted
hourly renewable generation ḠR , and the state-of-charge
of energy storage. The decisions include whether to join
the cluster, the power exchange to the cluster, together
with a “price” for the power exported/imported.
• Scheduling: the objective is to schedule the conventional
generator and energy storage to meet the load, power
exchange and reserve requirements. The input to the
microgrid EMS consists of the forecasted 5-min load L̂C
and L̂I , the forecasted 5-min renewable generation ĜR ,
and the state-of-charge of energy storage. The decisions
include the scheduled power output of conventional gen-
erator and the interruptible load to be served.
• Dispatch: the objective is to dispatch the conventional
generation and energy storage to achieve the power
balance with actual load and renewable generation, by
complying with the power exchange settled in self-
organization stage. The input to the microgrid EMS
consists of the realized load LC and LI , the realized
renewable generation GR , and the state-of-charge of
energy storage. The decisions include the power output
of conventional generator and the energy storage.
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Fig. 3. Constructing the cost function of power exchange (right) from the
conventional generator’s cost function (left).
It is worth noting that the above scheduling stage and
dispatch stage exactly resemble the functions of a utility EMS.
Further, renewable generation would be curtailed whenever the
surplus generation cannot be absorbed by storage and load.
III. S ELF - ORGANIZATION OF M ICROGRID C LUSTER
By following the procedure presented in Section II.C, we
then proceed to develop the decentralized control algorithm
for the self-organization stage towards forming a microgrid
cluster. The decisions in the self-organization stage include: 1)
whether to join the cluster, and 2) the power exchange to the
cluster, such that the overall generation cost of the microgrid
cluster is minimized. To this end, it is necessary to express
the generation cost as a function of the power exchange.
A. Generation Cost as A Function of Power Exchange
We address this issue from the power balance condition for
an individual microgrid, which implies that the available power
supply is equal to the power demand within the microgrid.
Specifically, the power balance equation is given by:
ḠR + ḠC + ηSoc CS /T1 = L + Pex ,
in which CS denotes the capacity of energy storage, Soc
denotes the state-of-charge, η (η1) denotes the charg-
ing/discharging efficiency, L denotes the overall load to be
served, and Pex denotes the power exchange to the cluster. It
is worth noting a positive Pex indicates that the microgrid
is exporting power to other microgrids, while a negative
Pex indicates that the microgrid is drawing power from the
cluster. Further, the overall load to be served should satisfy
the following inequality (i.e., critical loads have to be served):
L̄C  L  L̄C + L̄I .
We then characterize the cost function of the power ex-
change. It is assumed that renewable generation ḠR has zero
generation cost, and power supply from discharging storage
ηSoc CS also has zero generation cost. Therefore, the only
generation cost is from the conventional generation ḠC . Let
CG (·) denote the cost function of conventional generation.
Then, the generation cost of an individual microgrid as a
function of power exchange Pex is given by:
C(Pex ) = CG (L + Pex − ηSoc CS /T1 − ḠR ).
The above equation does not suffice to fully characterize C(·),
due to the inequality (2). However, recall that one objective in
self-organization stage is to serve as much interruptible load as
possible. Therefore, interruptible load can be assigned with a
per unit cost that is equal to the maximal marginal generation
cost of the conventional generator; in other words, interruptible
/, load is the last resource to resort to. Then, C(·) can be
constructed from CG (·), as illustrated in Fig. 3(b). Specifically,
+ /, ) 3H[ the left segment (i.e., the flat part) of C(·) corresponds to the
case that all load is supply by energy storage or imported
power, and thus C(·) equals the no-load running cost of
the conventional generator. The middle segment (the super-
linear part) of C(·) corresponds to the generation cost of the
conventional generators; and the right segment (the straight
line part) of C(·) corresponds to the cost of interrupted load.
It is worth noting that CG (·) is typically a convex function,
e.g., a quadratic function, and thus C(·) is also convex.
B. Decentralized Algorithm for Optimal Power Exchange
After the cost function C(·) of the power exchange Pex for
each individual microgrid is obtained, we then characterize
the optimal power exchange within the microgrid cluster, so
as to minimize the overall generation cost. Specifically, this
problem can be formulated as below:
N
min Ci (Pex,i ), (4)
i=1
in which, Pex,i denotes the power exchange of microgrid i to
the cluster, and Ci (·) denotes the cost function of microgrid i.
The problem in (4) is formulated in a centralized form, since
the global information from all microgrids has to be collected
together in order to solve the problem in (4). As discussed
in Section II.B, solving the problem in (4) in a centralized
manner raises issues in many aspects. Therefore, we then
(1)
derive the solution to the problem in (4) in a decentralized
manner instead. Specifically, one important constraint to the
problem in (4) is the power balance among all microgrids (by
neglecting the power loss on the cluster AC bus), i.e.
N
Pex,i = 0. (5)
i=1
By taking into account the fact that all Ci (·) are convex, it
is easy to see that the problem in (4) falls into a category of
optimal exchange problems [5]. The solution to the problem
in (4) can be easily obtained in a decentralized manner, by
(2) applying the alternating direction multipliers method (ADMM)
[5]. Specifically, the optimal power exchange can be obtained
by solving the following problems iteratively, for microgrid i:
 ρ  
k 2
k+1
Pex,i = arg min Ci (x) + λk x + x − Pex,i k
+ P̄ex ,
x 2
(6)
λk+1 = λk + ρP̄exk+1
, (7)
k
in which P̄ex is the average power exchange, λk is the price for
power exchange at iteration k, and ρ is an augment coefficient
which can be determined by using the approach in reference
(3)
[6] for quadratic functions. According to reference [5], since
all Ci (·) are convex, the solution to (6) and (7) will converge
very quickly to the optimal solution to the problem in (4).
C. Self-organization of Microgrid Cluster for adopting decentralized control). Generally, the amount of
By incorporating the decentralized solution to the optimal reserve depends on the uncertainty in load and renewable
power exchange problem, the overall algorithm for the self- generation. The practical “x + y” rule1 is adopted in this
organization of microgrid cluster is summarized in Algo- study. Then, the scheduling problem of a microgrid during
rithm 1. Specifically, the decentralized solution to the optimal a T1 timeslot (comprised of K T2 timeslots) is given by:
power exchange problem is adopted in Step 3 and Step 4 of K  
Algorithm 1. Here, a small value ε and a maximal number max UL (L̂k ) − CG (ĜkC ) (8)
k=1
of iterations K are used to terminate the iterations, whenever
the solution has become sufficiently close to optimum (when  k k−1

k
s.t. η Soc − Soc CS /T2 + ĜkR
P̄ex <ε), or the microgrid cluster stops taking more time to
seek a better solution. Note that Step 9 is adopted to guarantee
+ ĜkC = L̂k + Pex , ∀k (9)
the exact power balance among all microgrids. In Step 10, if
any microgrid EMS finds that the solution cannot guarantee
that its critical loads are totally served, the microgrid is L̂kC  L̂k  L̂kC + L̂kI , ∀k (10)
removed from the cluster. Then, the remaining microgrids
would re-run the procedure to determine which microgrid ĜkC + Rk  Gmax
C , ∀k (11)
would stay and its corresponding optimal power exchange
to the cluster. It is worth noting that λ, which is obtained in which UL (·) is the utility function of served load (e.g.,
by (7) after convergence, can act as the marginal price for a linear function in [7]), (9) is the power balance equation,
the power exchange [5]. By using λ, it would be easy to (11) requires that adequate reserve Rk is scheduled, and
calculate the payment/revenue of a microgrid, i.e., λPex,i , for Gmax
C is the rated capacity of the conventional generator. It is
importing/exporting power from/to other microgrids. worth noting that other security constraints (voltage magnitude
limits, line rating) are not shown above due to space limit.
Algorithm 1 Self-organization of microgrid cluster
1: Initialization: λ=0, Pex,i =ḠR +ḠC +ηSoc CS /T1 −L̄C . B. Real-time Dispatch
2: for k = 1 to K do In real-time dispatch, the microgrid EMS determines the
k
3: Each M-EMS broadcasts its power exchange Pex,i . actual power output from conventional generator and energy
k
4: Each M-EMS calculates P̄ex , updates λ according to (7) storage for the current T2 timeslot. In order to tackle the
and then updates its power exchange by solving (6). variations in load and renewable generation, as well as to make
k
5: if P̄ex < ε then better use of energy storage across consecutive T2 timeslots,
6: stop iteration. look-ahead dispatch [9] is adopted. Specifically, the M -slot-
7: end if ahead dispatch for the k-th timeslot can be formulated as:
8: end for
M
9: The microgrid with the largest generation surplus modifies min CG (GkC ) + CG (Ĝk+m
C ) (12)
its power exchange to achieve overall power balance. m=1

10: Each M-EMS checks whether (2) is satisfied. If not, the  k k−1

microgrid is removed from cluster, and then go to Step 1. s.t. η Soc − Soc CS /T2 + GkR + GkC = Lk + Pex , (13)

IV. S CHEDULING AND D ISPATCH IN M ICROGRID
After the self-organization stage, each microgrid EMS can
perform scheduling and dispatch independently, in accordance
with the power exchange settled in the self-organization stage.
Since the scheduling and dispatch functions of a microgrid
EMS resemble those of a utility EMS, the procedure can be
easily derived from existing literature [7].
A. Reliability-constrained Scheduling
In the scheduling stage, the microgrid EMS determines
the anticipated conventional generation and energy storage
charge/discharge to meet load, power exchange and reserve
requirement for each T1 timeslot. One key step towards the
reliable operations of microgrids is to maintain an adequate
amount of operating reserves. In a microgrid cluster, each
individual microgrid can have different requirements on the
amount of the reserve (recall that this is one important reason
GkC  Gmax
C . (14)
Besides the constraints for the current k-th T2 timeslot in (13)-
(14), the above problem also has constraints as in (9)-(11)
for all M subsequent k-th T2 timeslots. Note that one main
difference between dispatch and scheduling is that reserve is
no longer a decision variable in real-time dispatch, as can be
seen from (14) in comparison to (11).
V. C ASE S TUDY
To verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms for
self-organization and decentralized energy management of
microgrid cluster, we carry out numerical experiments by
using a test microgrid system. The benchmark for performance
evaluation includes a centralized controller managing all re-
sources, as well as microgrid EMSs operating independently
(i.e., without clustering of individual microgrids).
 TABLE I
E NERGY NOT SERVED OF DIFFERENT CONTROLS AT VARIOUS FORECAST
ERRORS OF RENEWABLE GENERATION AND RESERVE

Generation Cluster Cluster

Reserve Independent
uncertainty (decentralized) (centralized)
5% 1.61 MWh 1.58 MWh 2.36 MWh
5% variance
10% 1.32 MWh 1.27 MWh 1.98 MWh
5% 1.92 MWh 1.89 MWh 2.75 MWh
10% variance
10% 1.37 MWh 1.36 MWh 2.13 MWh

Fig. 4. Test system of microgrid cluster (:

G conventional generation; :
S management of microgrids, indicating the benefit brought by
energy storage;   : solar PV generation).
W : wind power generation; PV clustering of microgrids. The proposed decentralized control
achieves almost identical performance to the optimal central-
200
ized control; however, the centralized control may not be prac-
180
tical due to the many reasons discussed earlier in this paper.
160
Further, sensitivity analysis is carried out by considering dif-
140 ferent levels of renewable generation uncertainty and reserves
120 (as percentage of the sum of forecasted load and renewable
100 generation). Specifically, similar to [7], 5% and 10% variance
80
of renewable generation forecasts are considered.
60 PV generation
Wind generation
VI. C ONCLUSION
40 Total critical load
Total Interruptible load
In this paper, we propose a new decentralized control
20 scheme for managing a cluster of microgrids through self-
0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24
organization, decentralized scheduling and dispatch. The de-
Hour of day centralized control scheme allows heterogenous reliability
Fig. 5. Load and renewable generation data. requirements across different microgrids, and also provides a
venue for calculating revenue and payments between micro-
grids by using marginal prices. The proposed decentralized
A. Microgrid Cluster Test System control scheme improves the scalability and flexibility, and
The test system is modified based on the microgrid in [7]. achieves comparable performance in terms of system reliabil-
As illustrated in Fig.4, the microgrid cluster consists of three ity, when compared to a centralized one. The effectiveness of
microgrids connected by a mid-voltage cluster bus. The two the proposed algorithms is revealed through case studies.
conventional generators are identical and have a rated capacity
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