A fuzzy logic embedded energy management software with multi-agent system for a stand-alone PV power plant

Abstract

The worst scenario projected for an off-grid photovoltaic power system is the time interval that the solar irradiation amount is in short to supply the load throughout the day, and this situation is resulted in energy deficiency. Nowadays, an off-grid power generating system, which is designed to consider the worst scenario encountered only during a certain period of time, brings through big financial problems in terms of the initial installation costs. This study proposes a smart software to perform energy management considering users' comfort and their criteria, which are taking some information from the agents communicating with the consumption units wirelessly and the battery agent. All loads and agents in this system are initially defined by the user according to the importance of the consumption loads such as critical, essential, significant, lesser, and insignificant loads. The proposed energy management software includes fuzzy logic-based decision maker to manage load suspension or put the suspended load into effect again according to the state of the sources. The total amount of consumption is kept less than the total existing energy so that the energy to be consumed by the critical loads is always provided. Considering the existing amount of energy and consumer preferences, the total amount of load units is maximized at each sampling step. The proposed system, which is attained without compromising the user comfort, enables more efficient energy consumption. Also, for supplying the critical loads in case of lack of energy is possible.