46
1, JANUARY 2014
Improving Sustainability of Hybrid Energy Systems
Part II: Managing Multiple Objectives With a
Multiagent System
Christopher M. Colson, Member, IEEE, M. Hashem Nehrir, Life Fellow, IEEE, Ratnesh K. Sharma, Member, IEEE,
and Babak Asghari, Member, IEEE
Abstract—Hybrid power systems and microgrids may employ a
mixture of dispatchable (conventional) and nondispatchable (re-
newable) generators alongside storage. Whether in grid-connected
or grid-isolated (islanded) modes of operation, these systems
may face multiple competing objectives when managing diverse
installed assets. Power management of hybrid energy systems,
therefore, involves operational tradeoffs amongst Pareto-optimal
solutions. These attributes, including the ready implementation
of distributed renewable generation and the incorporation of
methods to locally manage power-networked assets, make them a
unique area of study for pursing better sustainable performance.
In part I of this paper, storage system round-trip efficiency and
operational cost concepts were formulated for use in real-time
dispatch decisions towards yielding improved performance of
overall system objectives. In this paper (part II), the concepts of
part I are implemented with a decentralized multiagent system
(MAS). This MAS is employed for power management of a hybrid
(diesel-storage battery) microgrid in grid-connected and islanded
modes. This paper highlights the development and implementation
of an MAS suitable for hybrid and microgrid system applications,
as well as presenting an important discussion about the tradeoffs
associated with multiobjective design for power management.
The simulation results presented demonstrate improvement in
sustainable performance of the hybrid system.
Index Terms—Distributed generation, microgrid, multiagent.
I. INTRODUCTION
M ICROGRIDS are still rare as their development is at an
early stage, but conceptually, microgrids are widely un-
derstood to be self-contained power systems of a few MW or
less of generation, controllable and noncontrollable load cen-
ters, and local energy storage. More common globally are hy-
brid systems that couple two or more generation and/or storage
assets together to enhance system operation. Clearly, a primary
purpose of implementing multiple assets in a hybrid or micro-
grid configuration is to improve performance of the overall en-
ergy system. It must be noted, however, that notions of im-
Manuscript received October 14, 2012; revised February 27, 2013 and May
24, 2013; accepted June 04, 2013. Date of publication August 08, 2013; date of
current version December 12, 2013. This work was supported in part by NEC
Laboratories-America, Inc., and in part by DOE Award DE-FG02-11ER46817.
C. M. Colson and M. H. Nehrir are with the Electrical and Computer En-
gineering Department, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717 USA
(e-mail: christopher.colson@msu.montana.edu; hnehrir@ece.montana.edu).
R. K. Sharma and B. Asghari are with NEC Laboratories America, Cupertino,
CA 95014 USA (e-mail: ratnesh@sv.nec-labs.com; babak@sv.nec-labs.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSTE.2013.2269319
1949-3029 © 2013 IEEE
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 5, NO.
proving performance for such systems is often subjective and
can be hard to fully define, as will be discussed below.
Microgrids continue to be of interest as infrastructure compo-
nents that can readily connect with or separate from the utility
grid, sustaining continuous operations while offering broader
opportunities to integrate locally assigned objectives for power
management. Additionally, it is expected that a prime means
for deploying distributed energy resources (DERs), especially
renewables, will be in hybrid or microgrid systems. The supply
available from renewable DERs may vary greatly within a very
short period of time, and with many such assets coupled on a
relatively small power network, asset dispatch and control de-
cisions must be made at a more rapid pace than is common for
conventional power systems. The combination of these factors,
along with a desire to incorporate local power management ob-
jectives, represents a shift in the operational approach towards
installed assets, including the employment of storage systems.
In this paper, the authors contribute an approach to address
the multiobjective decision-making for hybrid or microgrid sys-
tems that is different than conventional techniques for power
management. Here, the authors expand on the MAS from their
previous work, [1], and utilize the formulations in part I of this
paper [2], within the decision-making MAS framework, to seek
power management solutions for a diesel-battery storage hybrid
stationary power system. The authors intend to introduce the
complexity seeking optimal power management solutions for
multiple objectives and diverse assets incorporated into a micro-
grid. MAS methods are recent and their application to the micro-
grid multiobjective problem is new. Therefore, the authors seek
to present the MAS approach used as a foundation for future
works that will compare MAS performance to other techniques,
including centralized decision-making methods; what method-
ology or technique is best for addressing microgrid management
holistically remains to be shown. The diesel-battery hybrid was
chosen as an example for two reasons. First, for hybrid systems
employed worldwide, diesel-battery systems are some of the
most commonly seen, especially in islanded applications. This
allows ready comparison of MAS power management to con-
ventional control methods. Examples range from on-grid unin-
terruptible power supplies (UPS) [3], to off-grid rural commu-
nity power [4], [5], to remote base transceiver stations (BTS)
for critical telecommunications [6]–[8]. Second, the diesel-bat-
tery hybrid is a suitable example of a system that combines a
small number of controllable assets, each with sufficient com-
plexity of optimizable objectives, to be illustrative of MAS de-
cision-making.
COLSON et al.: IMPROVING SUSTAINABILITY OF HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEMS PART II
The predominance of MAS literature is reviewed in [1] and
is not repeated here. For the MAS system based on [1] and
developed in this paper, the multiobjective problem is com-
plicated by knowledge that, in many instances, an improve-
ment in one objective may lead to a worsening in another; a
principle that must be taken into consideration. Additionally,
it is desirable to incorporate in situ goals defined by the mi-
crogrid owner/operator (hereafter referred to as the user) into
MAS decision-making. Therefore, Section II highlights aspects
of MAS decision-making that account for these considerations
and occurs without the benefit of a central supervisor. Further,
Section III details the application of the developed MAS to the
power management problem in an environment where tradeoffs
between objectives are key.
In [1], incremental simulations were shown to illustrate MAS
behavior when confronting a singular disturbance to a micro-
grid. There, the storage agents used cost and performance func-
tions based on a straightforward conventional charge-discharge
routine for a generic storage system. To advance the MAS given
in [1], in Section IV, singular disturbance simulations for a grid-
connected diesel-storage battery microgrid are conducted using
an improved lead-acid battery model and better cost and per-
formance functions developed in part I of this paper [2]. In
Section V, the MAS is simulated for an islanded diesel-storage
battery hybrid system under continuous disturbances as would
be expected under real-world conditions and is compared to a
conventional control technique for such systems. Sections IV
and V offered opportunities to present the performance of MAS
power management over conventional methods for common on-
and off-grid diesel-battery hybrids currently used around the
world. With these demonstrations, the authors seek to add to
recent research employing MAS architectures towards power
systems applications, including microgrids [9]–[13]. Conclu-
sions are given in Section VI highlighting how agents’ improved
ability to make better asset decisions may lead to better perfor-
mance for hybrid and microgrid systems, including those that
incorporate renewable DERs.
II. MAS DECISION-MAKING
The primary purpose of the hybrid or microgrid system power
management architecture is to ensure stable delivery of elec-
trical power to local loads, while optimizing energy production
towards an assigned objective(s). Here, building on [1], aspects
of the decentralized agents’ decision-making process in a mul-
tiobjective environment are discussed.
A. Decision Cycle in a Decentralized MAS
The decision cycle is an importance concept for MAS op-
eration, introduced in [1], shown in Fig. 1. For the agents that
make up the decentralized MAS, a decision cycle is defined as
the amount of time used by each agent to formulate, negotiate,
and execute a solution for the operation of its local asset. This
is similar in concept to trading cycles used by market agents en-
gaged in economic auctions, such as in [13], with two key differ-
ences. First, as opposed to market-based auctions that occur at
regularly synchronized intervals, the decision cycle is initiated
asynchronously by unpredictable events such as spot market
price changes, resource availability changes, emergency con-
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47
Fig. 1. Agent decision cycle.
ditions, etc. Second, the time to complete a cycle varies based
on many factors including computation time, intensity of nego-
tiations, latency, and execution time. Ultimately, the decision
cycle allows the agents to manage their assigned asset inde-
pendently and respond to events as they occur, without relying
upon a centralized supervisor. Collectively, agents operating au-
tonomously can self-organize and collaborate through negotia-
tion during their decision cycles. This concept allows the MAS
to be flexible and responsive while seeking optimal solutions to
assigned goals.
An agent’s decision cycle (all references shown in Fig. 1)
initiates asynchronously when an initiating event is perceived
by the agent (at ). The agent senses local conditions and con-
ducts internal computation to determine a solution to its present
conditions during the computational period (between and ).
The awareness of local conditions and the quality of solution
may lead the agent to seek cooperation with other agents, if dic-
tated by the agent’s algorithm; otherwise, the agent moves di-
rectly to execute its decision. If cooperation is desired, the agent
enters a period of negotiation with one or more MAS agents
(between and ). This period may be very short due to a
lack of response from potential collaborators, or involve many
messages passed between agents as they settle upon a mutually
agreeable course of action. Once negotiation is complete, the
agent carries out its decision during a period of action execu-
tion (between and ) that continues until a new initiating
event starts the decision cycle to begin again. If no negotiation
was conducted, the period of execution follows the computation
period directly (between and ). In this work, time between
initiating events was significantly longer (1 s or greater) than
the total time to complete a decision cycle ( ms).
In future work, initiating events that occur prior to full cycle
completion and, therefore, interrupt decision cycle flow will be
addressed.
The software developed to operate the multiagent system
was developed by the authors and utilized the Java Agent DE-
velopment (JADE) communication libraries for the Foundation
48
Fig. 2. Representation of a multiobjective, multiconstraint optimization
problem and resulting Pareto frontier.
for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA)-compliant protocols—a
public domain software.
B. Pareto Decision-Making
Often, decision-making requires analysis of numerous com-
peting goals simultaneously. Multiobjective optimization seeks
an optimal solution amidst a combination of objective functions,
described by maximizing or minimizing as follows:
(1)
subject to
(2)
where is the vector of objective functions containing objec-
tive functions ( to ), is the -length vector of variables
to be optimized known as the decision variables, and rep-
resents the -length vector of inequality constraints. Equality
constraints were not applicable to the power management con-
sidered in this paper. However, in most cases, a global best of
any particular individual objective function may not be a sat-
isfactory solution for the remaining objectives [14]. Because
of this, we need to alter our concept of optimality for prob-
lems such as for hybrid or microgrid power management. Sim-
ilar to economic systems, Pareto optimal solutions each max-
imize or minimize the objective function , but given it
is composed of multiple objectives, each Pareto optimal so-
lution implies that any one objective’s satisfaction cannot be
raised any further without lowering another objective’s satis-
faction, or vice versa. In other words, many “optimal” solu-
tions exist where the value of cannot be improved any fur-
ther. To illustrate this, consider two decision variables , Within the MAS framework, two agents are assigned to a
three constraints (dashed lines), and two objective functions
shown in Fig. 2. A particular solution in the re-
gion of feasible solutions, shown on the left side of Fig. 2, maps
to the objective functions graph, projection shown by the dotted
line to the right side of Fig. 2, where the particular solution’s rel-
ative achievement of each objective is shown. The Pareto front
represents the combinational minimization of the two objective
functions, shown by the dark line in Fig. 2. Along this front,
is at a minimum. It is noted that no direct method to de-
rive the Pareto set of solutions is known.
Unfortunately, for the hybrid or microgrid system, conditions
can change very rapidly changing the constraints and decision
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY 2014
variables. This means that the Pareto set of solutions in one time
increment may be dramatically different from the Pareto set in
the next increment. This phenomenon, as well as the microgrid
MAS ability to find strong solutions along the Pareto front, will
be shown in Section IV.
III. MAS POWER MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION
As the MAS operates, cost and performance functions are cal-
culated by the agents for their respective assets at each computa-
tional increment. As discussed in [1] and part I of this paper [2],
a cost measure that incorporates fixed and variable cost com-
ponents is, alone, inadequate to fully define the optimal oper-
ation of hybrid or microgrid system assets. It is noted for all
simulations, cost functions for microgrid assets were limited to
energy costs and fixed overhead; maintenance and other vari-
able costs were omitted, but may be readily included in more
detailed cost functions. Subsequently, each agent determines a
performance measure that reflects how well its asset is achieving
optimal operation based on its given objectives. The charac-
teristics of the cost and performance functions vary dynami-
cally depending on the asset and conditions including loading,
state-of-charge (SOC), discharge history, etc. Cost and perfor-
mance information may be shared between agents according to
the decision cycle, described in Section II, to assist in cooper-
ation. In order to solve for the best operating condition for an
asset, the agent assigned to it first uses local information to de-
velop its cost and performance functions, and , re-
spectively. These functions are unique for every asset and de-
pend on different decision variables . To simplify the problem
presentation, the set of decision variables used for the simula-
tions in Sections IV and V consisted of the individual microgrid
asset’s dispatch power. However, the set of decision variables
may be broader including voltage, frequency, and other factors
of operation. For this paper, each agent’s overall objective func-
tion was
(3)
where is the combinational objective function for agent
containing cost objective function and performance ob-
jective function , weighted according to the user-defined
and . The details of the functions and variables used are
shown in [1] for the diesel genset and in [2] for the lead-acid
battery. This linear sum of assigned objectives defines the deci-
sion-making search space which the agent must solve.
storage asset; one producer and one consumer. Each decision
cycle, these agents independently seek solutions to the dispatch
of their asset, guided by goal information provided by the user.
User goals directly influenced the weights assigned to
the components of performance utilized by individual agents,
described further in Section IV, scenario 2 below. However, be-
cause two agents are responsible for the same asset, negotiation
is forced to arise each decision cycle. This ensures that merits
of charging or discharging in each computational increment are
properly evaluated. The result of storage agents’ negotiations
leads to an operating decision based upon a mutually agreed
upon solution.
COLSON et al.: IMPROVING SUSTAINABILITY OF HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEMS PART II
TABLE I
MICROGRID PARAMETERS
Fig. 3. Concept of operations for simulated two-asset microgrid.
IV. SIMULATION AND RESULTS—GRID CONNECTED CASE
This section builds on the analytic work developed in [1] and
[2]. Here, a simulated grid-connected microgrid includes a hy-
brid system composed of a diesel genset and a lead-acid storage
battery bank serving a fixed load center with noncontrollable
loads (parameters shown in Table I). The load was fixed in these
scenarios to simplify the comparative results which would be
affected by changing demand. The microgrid is connected to
the utility through a point of common coupling (PCC), either
supplying or consuming energy across the interconnection. The
MAS used for this study employed a producer agent assigned
to the diesel genset, both a producer agent and consumer agent
assigned to the storage asset, and an observer agent assigned to
pass utility spot price information to the MAS collective, shown
in Fig. 3.
In the decentralized decision-making process, two objective
functions were imposed upon each agent within the system:
minimize operational cost and maximize system perfor-
mance . Operational cost was defined by fuel consump-
tion and the cost of battery charge/discharge, respectively. Per-
formance was defined by operational efficiency and environ-
mental emissions, namely total hydrocarbons (THC) and carbon
dioxide (CO ). The solutions decided by the agents translate
into actual operation of their assets. For the purpose of evalu-
ating the solution quality of the whole microgrid, the individual
cost and performance results of each agent’s solution was aggre-
gated. This information is highlighted by shading in Tables II
and III. It is important to note, however, that this overall mea-
sure of microgrid performance is a form of global knowledge
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49
TABLE II
SCENARIO PARAMETERS
that was only collected for testing and was not available to the
agents. While asset dispatch decisions were made exclusively
by the agents, the user could impose their will upon the storage
agents by specifying a relative importance between
revenue and battery health. The agents made dispatch decisions
independently, but communicated as appropriate.
In scenarios 1 and 2 below, simulation results are presented in
three increments: initial conditions, disturbance, and final con-
ditions. The results are presented this way for the purpose of
clarity, illustrating the MAS decision-making outcomes and al-
lowing easier comparison of system conditions upon a system
disturbance. In Section V, the results for a similar system (is-
landed case) are presented and aggregated outcomes are com-
pared with the outcomes from a conventional case.
A. Scenario 1: Spot Market Price Change
The purpose of this scenario was to demonstrate how agents
sense and respond to a system disturbance, using local cost
and performance information to guide their decision-making.
Here, the microgrid was simulated at an initially stable con-
dition, given in Table II, interconnected with the utility and
all objectives weighted equally . Initially given the
high cost of utility electricity supply (Fig. 3), the microgrid
was both operating its diesel and discharging the battery to
offset purchases from the utility required to power the local
load. Then, system conditions were disturbed by a significant
increase in the market price of electricity supplied by the
utility, from $0.31 to $0.38 per kWh, yielding a total cost of
load operation increasing from $31/h to $38/h. Given a new
price environment, the diesel producer agent manipulated its
asset to operate more profitably and with better performance
within constraints. During the short time period of grid price
change, SOC of the battery did not change appreciably. After
the battery producer and consumer agents communicated, their
decision was to continue discharging at predisturbance levels.
Ultimately, as grid price rose in this scenario, new operating
parameters determined by the agents lead to better overall mi-
crogrid performance and more operational savings than prior to
the disturbance. As described earlier in this section, the overall
50
TABLE III
SCENARIO PARAMETERS
Fig. 4. Screenshot showing the discrete search space for predisturbance condi-
tions of scenario 1. The objective functions (minimize cost and maximize per-
formance) form the axes. Each circle represents a solution.
cost and performance of the microgrid operating solution are
shown in the shaded rows of Tables II and III.
The aggregated solution can be difficult to see, however, out-
side the context of the search space that the agents have avail-
able to them. Subsequently, in Fig. 4, the initial search space is
displayed, showing all possible discrete solutions for dispatch
on the microgrid; an arrow points to the operating solution col-
lectively decided upon by microgrid agents. In Fig. 5, the post-
disturbance search space is shown, reflecting the change in oper-
ational conditions that deepens the set of all possible solutions.
Again, the operating solution determined by the MAS is anno-
tated by the black arrow. In both cases, before and after the dis-
turbance, the agents have settled upon operating parameters for
their individual assets that yield a total microgrid solution that
is along (or very proximate) to the Pareto set of solutions. The
progress of events for scenario 1 is summarized in Table II.
B. Scenario 2: Change of User-Assigned Battery Goals
The purpose of this scenario was to show how agents can
not only incorporate changing operational conditions and con-
straints, but goals that adjust unpredictably, as well. Here, the
user manipulates the relative importance of microgrid revenue
to the health and longevity of the lead-acid battery. In other
words, the user may influence MAS decision-making by con-
veying goals dynamically. The user accomplishes this by inter-
acting with microgrid agents through a user interface, shown in
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY 2014
Fig. 5. Screenshot showing the discrete search space for postdisturbance con-
ditions of scenario 1. The objective functions, to minimize cost and maximize
performance, form the plot axes. Each circle represents a solution.
Fig. 6. Screenshots of the user input interface for the relative importance of
revenue versus battery health/longevity. Balanced initial conditions of scenario
2 are left; disturbance conditions (favoring battery health/longevity) are shown
on the right.
Fig. 6. The visual depiction of a weighing scale offers the user
an intuitive sense of relative importance, choosing which goal
to more heavily emphasize, thereby adjusting and . The
dollar sign (the left of the scale in Fig. 6) represents revenue;
the caduceus (the right of the scale) represents battery health
and longevity.
Initially, the microgrid conditions are identical to the final
conditions from scenario 1, shown in Table III. The predis-
turbance cost and performance functions for the storage pro-
ducer and consumer agents are shown in Fig. 7. The distur-
bance occurs when the user manipulates their interface (initially
), making battery health more important than cost/
profit ( ). Immediately, sensing a shift in objectives, the
storage agents commence negotiations on how to best achieve
them. Meanwhile, the grid price has not changed and the diesel
genset, already operating at its optimal state given the condi-
tions, does not modify its operation. Likewise, the grid cost
($0.38/kWh) remains below the charging cost threshold ($0.45/
kWh). However, when battery agent negotiation is completed,
the initial 5-kW battery discharge rate changes to charging at
25 kW. In this scenario, as user goals changed to favor battery
health, the overall system performance improved from 80% to
99%, while operational savings changes from $6/h to -$3/h, in-
dicating a shift from savings to expense.
At the outset, the system was at an equilibrium state where
each agent has completed a decision cycle and is awaiting an
initiating event. When the disturbance occurs altering the ob-
jectives for the storage agents, the performance functions deter-
mined independently by each storage agent reveal a scenario
where no point of discharge would yield better performance
than any charging point. This is illustrated in Fig. 8 where the
producer agent’s discharging performance curve is less
than the consumer agent’s charging performance curve
COLSON et al.: IMPROVING SUSTAINABILITY OF HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEMS PART II 51

Fig. 7. Screenshot showing the predisturbance cost and performance characteristics for the storage producer and consumer agents in scenario 2. The solid vertical
line represents actual battery dispatch; the dotted vertical line represents the dispatch limit.

Fig. 8. Screenshot showing the postdisturbance cost and performance characteristics for the storage producer and consumer agents in scenario 2. The solid vertical
line represents the actual battery dispatch.

for all possible dispatch powers. This presents conditions where

objectives of minimizing cost and maximizing performance are
nearly directly opposed. In other words, because the user has
emphasized the goal of battery health and there is no feasible
solution that achieves a better objective function value, ,
for discharging than for charging, the battery must charge. Using
the performance functions and through negotiation, the storage
agents arrive at this conclusion collaboratively. Despite being
costly to charge, the storage agents’ solution best achieves the Fig. 9. Screenshot showing the search space for postdisturbance conditions of
scenario 2. The search space is greatly condensed given operating conditions.
user goals given the operating conditions. This decision is re-
flective of the user’s intentions to maintain the battery health
and longevity over cost implications, dictated by the user inter- performance measure, partially a function of SOC, contains op-
face shown by Fig. 6. In Fig. 9, the postdisturbance search space erating points within its feasible region that represent perfor-
has tightened compared to the predisturbance search space for mance values better than for charging. This indicates an oppor-
scenario 2, shown in Fig. 5. tunity to improve battery operating performance; the agents rec-
In this scenario, the focus was on an isolated disturbance ognize this and conclude to resume discharging. In this way,
within a short period of time. Of course, as time moves ahead, using only local information, the agents autonomously follow
the battery continues to charge until SOC improves to about the goals set forth by the user and dispatch the battery to best
75% in this case, shown in Fig. 10. At this point, the discharge achieve them.

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52 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 5, NO. 1, JANUARY 2014

Fig. 10. Screenshot showing the cost and performance characteristics for the storage producer and consumer agents after the battery charging has recovered
SOC to 75% from the postdisturbance conditions of scenario 2. The solid vertical line represents the actual battery dispatch; the dotted vertical line represents the
dispatch limit.

Fig. 12. Normalized load demand profiles for 50-home village [15].

Fig. 11. Concept of operations for simulated two-asset islanded microgrid.

TABLE IV
HYBRID SYSTEM ASSET CAPACITY OPTIONS

V. SIMULATION AND RESULTS—ISLANDED CASE

The computation culminating in agent action during a single
decision cycle, described in Section II, is difficult to illus-
trate. To that end, however, two scenarios were presented in
Section IV for the purpose of showing how the MAS may
respond to a disturbance. In this section, rather than focusing
on an isolated disturbance, the MAS was simulated under
constantly changing conditions, as would be expected in a
real-world situation, continuing the analytic work developed in
[1] and [2]. In this case, a grid-isolated (islanded) hybrid system
composed of a diesel genset and a lead-acid storage battery
bank, serving a noncontrollable load center, shown in Fig. 11,
was simulated over a full day. The load center was modeled as
a residential neighborhood or village of 50 all-electric homes,
daily load profiles of which are shown in Fig. 12 [15]. The use
of a realistic load profile was intended to simulate a demand
that varied in real-time; the MAS had no foreknowledge of load
changes and reacted to demand information from increment to
increment. Only results from the Summer Weekend profile are
given in Table V, but overall simulation outcomes were similar
for each daily profile.
The MAS used for this study was nearly identical to that used
in Section IV, with a major exception. In the grid-connected
case, excess power produced locally by assets on the micro-
grid could be absorbed by the utility. Conversely, inadequate
local supply could be supplemented with utility supply. In the
islanded case, however, this is not possible and the local assets
are constrained to meet demand at all times. The consequence
of this constraint emphasizes the operational tradeoffs between

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COLSON et al.: IMPROVING SUSTAINABILITY OF HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEMS PART II
TABLE V
FOUR SIMULATION SCENARIOS FOR 24-HOUR SUMMER WEEKEND DAY (BEST METRICS IN SCENARIO SHADED IN DARK GREY)
the diesel and battery assets that are not present in the grid-con-
nected case. In other words, when grid-connected, each asset is
fairly free to operate where the assigned agent determines the
best operating point to be. However, in the islanded case, the
agents must coordinate their operating points to precisely meet
load demand.
Clearly, the capacity ratings of the diesel and battery assets
matter significantly in the islanded case. After all, the asset rat-
ings determine how much energy storage is available to sup-
plement dispatchable power, as well as how long it takes to re-
plenish stored energy. To that end, two sizes of diesel gensets
and two sizes of batteries were considered in this study. Sizes
were dictated by load demand, shown in Table IV. Using each
possible combination of asset capacities, four unique scenarios
were used for simulations: Large Diesel Small Battery; Large
Diesel Large Battery; Small Diesel Small Battery; and
Small Diesel Large Battery.
Conventionally, diesel-battery hybrid systems operate with a
fairly simple control strategy. In terms of power management,
the method may be summarized by the following rules:
1) The battery supplies power to the load until reaching a low
voltage threshold, indicating low SOC.
2) At the low voltage threshold, the diesel runs, powering the
load in addition to fully recharging the battery.
3) As the battery charges, typically at a set rate, voltage rises
and charging power decreases.
4) The diesel shuts off at a set low-load threshold.
This conventional control method for diesel-battery hybrid
operations can be problematic [16], and clearly does not con-
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53
sider diesel or battery efficiency, emissions, or costs. For the
purpose of comparison, this conventional power management
scheme is used as the base case. In Table V, the conventional
case is compared to the operation of the MAS under three sep-
arate power management approaches:
1) Battery operation is favored over the diesel.
2) Diesel operation is favored over the battery.
3) Neither asset is favored; dispatch optimization decisions
are made relative to capacity rating.
In order to appropriately compare the operational results be-
tween the power management methods, metrics such as effi-
ciency, cost, and emissions make up the rows of Table V. The
darkly shaded boxes indicate the power management method
that achieved the best results within the scenario. Below the dark
horizontal line, the last four rows give the combined microgrid
results. For each scenario, the best result within a row is high-
lighted with dark shading. It can be noted from Table V that the
MAS that used a blend of both assets’ cost and performance ob-
jectives to guide agent decisions, rather than focus on attempting
to optimize a single asset, consistently yielded the best results
(achieves 10 of the 16 possible best solutions for system metrics
across the four scenarios). However, some observations are im-
portant to note. For the multiobjective problem, there are many
cases where conditions arise where superior results for one goal
may be sacrificed for another. This finding is consistent with
the Pareto-optimal discussion in Section II, and can be seen by
some of the results. For example, in the Large Diesel Large
Battery scenario, the conventional dispatch method achieves the
best system efficiency. However, the MAS using mixed objec-
54
tives showed better costs and emissions for the same scenario.
In other words, in this case, although the MAS using mixed ob-
jectives had poorer efficiency, it had better results overall. This
case highlights the importance of considering multiple objec-
tives for power management and tailoring these objectives to
the user’s goals. Another example of this phenomenon is seen
for the Large Diesel Small Battery scenario. Although the
MAS that uses mixed objectives yields the best efficiency and
emissions results, it does so at higher cost than other power man-
agement methods. Again, in most cases tradeoffs exist when op-
timizing multiple objectives.
VI. CONCLUSION
Making the grid, as well as hybrid and microgrid systems,
smarter requires advances on many fronts. In this paper, we
have explored the exploitation of an MAS for decentralized
multiobjective power management within a hybrid or microgrid
system. Dynamically incorporating user goals into MAS deci-
sion-making, as well as handling rapid changes in operational
conditions, demonstrate the capabilities of this approach to
achieving real-time optimal solutions. Further, the authors have
presented the importance of using many objectives, including
round-trip efficiency and battery system operational cost, to
assist in making better power management decisions for hybrid
or microgrid systems that incorporate storage. The consider-
ation of how tradeoffs between objectives affect the overall
power management solution is often difficult to deduce, but
discussion presented herein offers some insight into addressing
tradeoffs towards a more capable and responsive power system,
especially when augmented by hybrid or microgrid systems.
The combination of multiple assets into microgrids and the
use of MAS architectures, such as shown in this paper, offer
opportunities to embed decentralized intelligence into emerging
power systems and, ultimately, can provide significant “smarts”
at the lowest hierarchical level of the power system.
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Chris M. Colson (S’07–M’13) received the B.S.
degree in control systems engineering from the
United States Naval Academy, in 1999, the MEM
degree from Old Dominion University, in 2006,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
Montana State University, in 2012.
He served as a Submarine Warfare Officer in the
U.S. Navy and was a National Science Foundation
(NSF) Graduate Research Fellow. His research inter-
ests include microgrids, power system integration of
emerging technologies, and intelligent computational
methods.
M. Hashem Nehrir (S’68–M’71–SM’89–F’10–LF’13) is a Professor of Elec-
trical and Computer Engineering at Montana State University. His research in-
terests include modeling and control of power systems, alternative energy power
generation systems, and application of intelligent control to power systems.
Ratnesh K. Sharma (M’11) has over 12 years experience in sustainable energy
management for distribution systems in buildings and transportation. He is the
founding head of the Energy Management Department at NEC Laboratories
America, Cupertino, CA, USA. He has authored more than 200 papers/technical
reports and holds over 70 U.S. patents on energy management and related areas.
Babak Asghari (S’06–M’09) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engi-
neering from the University of Alberta, Canada. He is currently a researcher in
the Energy Management Department at NEC Laboratories America, Cupertino,
CA, USA. His research interests include design of energy management systems
for microgrids and real-time simulation and control of power systems and
electric drives.