Final Project

Renewable Distributed Generation and Storage

Hongzhi Cui

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Abstract

Microgrids are small scale power generation and storage capable units typically
connected to the centralized grid with the capability of operating in an islanded mode. The
benefits of microgrids are to increase energy reliability, improve power quality, and reduce grid
congestion during peak loading times typically by adding power generation by clean energy
methods. The goal when designing a microgrid is to intelligently communicate the supply and
demand of power within the microgrided network to offer a more resilient and robust network
when connected to the larger grid. Microgrids depend on a combination of generation and
storage capabilities. These are used to distribute power out within the network or to the larger
grid to either improve power quality or reduce peak loading from the larger generation network.
To design a microgrid, one needs to consider the distributed energy resources and supply side
resources. A microgrid design takes into account the political, economical, and environmental
policies along with the several engineering disciplines required to design the system.

Introduction

Environmental, economic, and political issues over the last half-century have challenged
the electric utility industry. The increasing cost of primary fuels continues to challenge the
sustainability of power generation from fossil-based resources in the long period. The traditional
infrastructure reduces system reliability and efficiency. Microgrids are small electric grids with
their own power generation resources and internal load which may be connected with the large
scale microgrid. Microgrids can reduce the energy losses and the energy costs. It can improve
power quality, power factor, and the voltage profile. Most microgrids operate independently.
They can consist of small area villages or any small-scale area. In this project, the regions within
the microgrid consists of a school, hospital and residential buildings.
Considering the operational and economic challenges, smart grid technology would solve
these issues. The power generation will not follow consumption in the smart grid. Generally, the
utility will look to gain more efficiency with the existing access by minimizing losses, managing
end-user demand by load control, and partnering with consumers to roll back the load by

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conservation [1]. All these approaches can ensure that consumption follows generation. The
smart grid can optimize the uses of assets, reduce losses, curtail unnecessary load, and ensure
sustainable rationality between economical generation and the load.

1. Description of Microgrid Capabilities

The scope of the microgrid will cover a plot of land which can be seen as having four
customer types, these would include:

1. The Buffalo VAMC located at 3495 Bailey Ave, Buffalo, NY 14215 designated by the
blue area with the number 1 (Figure 1).
2. The University at Buffalo South Campus building located at 3435 Main St, Buffalo, NY
14214 designated by the blue area with the number 2 (Figure 1).
3. Commercial area shown in the purple region designated with the number 1 which covers
approximately 40 businesses (Figure 1).
4. Residential areas which are within the green borders designated by the numbers 1, 2, and
3 (Figure 1).

The microgrid covers a 0.98 mile2 area which has a total of 2 critical facilities, a strip of
commercial facilities along the strip south of the critical facilities, and several residential
buildings located throughout the area. The area is powered by several different sources, which
currently consists of a utility feed through Bailey Ave. and Main St. The Buffalo VAMC hospital
has two feeds from the grid to a substation located on-site which feeds the hospital and all the
surrounding buildings. The hospital also has on site generators and photovoltaic (PV) panels for
a few buildings within the hospital. The University at Buffalo South Campus has feeds coming
from the utility as well as backup generators to provide emergency power for critical loads. The
residential houses are all fed from 4,160V bus transformers with 240V split phase secondaries
tapping off at the nearest convenient utility pole to the residential power panels. Similarly, the
commercial feeds are fed off the same primary bus with a three-phase 208V transformer.

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Figure 1: Microgrid Regions

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1.1 Minimum Required Capabilities:

To meet minimum design requirements the facility must provide backup generation to our
critical facilities. This will be done with backup diesel generators and PV units placed on
rooftops of all available buildings wherever practical. The 4,160V backup generator will power
all loads within the microgrid for a one week period. As these generators are capable of
powering all loads on each half of the microgrid, they are used in the event of a black-out for
restarting the grid. The additional energy stored within the microgrid’s battery system, along
with the energy generated from the PV units, will provide power for all connected loads for at
least ten days without utility connection or power from the cogeneration facility. In the case of a
fault from either the microgrid or utility, which would cause power transfer and would be
harmful to either system, the utility’s main feed circuit breakers would trip alongside the
incoming main breaker to our substation to protect both systems from any cascading failures. At
this point of connection, information from the microgrid owner and the utility can be shared and
communicated. Here the utility can request conditioned power to the grid if seen that available
capacity exists within the microgrid, and all communications between the two will occur across
an encrypted channel.
Microprocessor based relay protections are available throughout all major equipment and
lines of the microgrid which serve to protect the system and personnel from various fault
situations to ensure a robust and resilient system. The combination of redundant radial and single
loop feeds through the system along with the relaying protections scheme used will allow for
faults due to any phenomenon which could occur. The system will be able to track locations of
faults within a given zone of protection and has the capability to find line short-circuit faults
through time of flight communication signals across lines.

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1.2 Preferable Microgrid Capabilities:

The microgrid’s critical facilities will be able to operate stand-alone from the remainder
of the system. In the event of an outage, these systems will be able to prioritize self-sustaining
for critical loads until a sufficient amount of energy is stored. At this point it may then feed out
to other loads in the residential and commercial areas based on a priority and energy capacity.
The microgrid will feature a cogeneration facility designed to provide power to our microgrid, as
well as heat which will be used in the form of hot water for primarily the two critical facilities on
site. The grid features various forms of relay protection to protect the system across all single
fault conditions with redundant parallel and on occasion loop feeds when applicable to sustain
multiple line faults. The redundant feeds are provided to allow the most resiliency with a loop
feed between the two 208V busses to allow for power transfer to the residential and commercial
loads when available capacity is present. The microgrid is designed to allow complete
disconnection from the grid while running all critical loads at 1.5x capacity. In times of severe
weather where the utility connection is unable to provide power, the backup generators,
cogeneration plant, and solar panels would provide sufficient heat and power to sustain a month
long snowstorms within the region.

The microgrid will be able to communicate power flow through each of the lines and
feeders at each bus of voltages 4160V and greater. This information will be passed to a
centralized supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system which will be capable of
compiling the information to use in maximizing efficiency within the microgrid. When required,
the SCADA system can read power demand from the grid if additional power is required during
peak demand or if it is required to condition the power quality of the grid. All communications
are done over fiber lines underground for maximum resiliency, fastest communication times, and
minimum interference with power lines.

The median household income in Buffalo as of 2019 is $37,354 with a 30.1% poverty
rate and a per capita income of $24,400 [17]. As being an impoverished region relative to these
rates when taken across the U.S., a cheaper and effective microgrid would be considered over a
higher-cost design.

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2. Develop Preliminary Technical Design Costs and Configuration

2.1 Proposed Microgrid Infrastructure and Operations

The microgrid under normal operating conditions will operate with roughly 40% of
incoming power offered from the utility, 40% from the cogeneration facility, and 20% from the
PV modules alongside the available battery storage. In the event of a fault, failure, or outage, a
priority based system will be used where the higher priority loads will continue to receive power
while lower tiered loads will not be delivered until stability requirements are met. This system
will at first prioritize critical loads at the University and for the hospital it will focus on the
critical, life-safety, and equipment branches which will switch over to the emergency feed
through their respective automatic transfer switches (ATS). When the system can supply all these
loads with sufficient additional capacity, additional loads will then be taken on. The next tier of
loads would then include 20% of all normal loads across the University, Hospital, residential,
and commercial areas while gradually increasing when possible until 100% of normal can be
accommodated alongside the all critical loads. If the system cannot achieve a balance between
power generated and demand at the next priority tier, it will drop to the previous tier and remain
where balance is possible until additional power is available.

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Figure 2: System One-Line Diagram

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2.2 Load Characterization

Figure 3. Microgrid Load System [1]

In Figure 3, it shows the microgrid load in the microgrid system. There are different types
of loads connecting the different locations of microgrid networks. The critical load such as
emergency lighting will be connected to the microgrid network [1]. The main purpose is that the
critical load can be supplied by the microgrid sources if the main grid is down. The microgrid
load management and control system is programmed to disconnect non critical loads and keep
supplying power to the critical load when the microgrid power limitation is in islanded mode.

The load by time is an important function of the energy storage system. It can determine
the peak power consumption by the time. It is usually used for reducing the influence of the load
variation and lowering the cost of the microgrid. The load is changing constantly due to the
turning on and off of devices within the system. The sudden increase and decrease of load can be
characterized as an energy storage system that works like a floating load. The result will be for
the load curve to stay constant for a duration of time if the mean value of the load does not
change drastically. In islanded mode, the load variation may cause the generation references to
distributed generation to change dramatically [1]. Since distributed generation cannot efficiently
change the power output, there will be an energy storage system within the microgrid. The
energy storage system can store energy when the load is low and output the energy during peak
load times with varying values depending on the load.

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 In the following figures, it shows the estimated power consumption for each month. The
average power consumption in the hospital is 7,560 kW each month. The average school power
consumption will be 6,000 kW each month. Since each household's average power consumption
is set as 400W each month with a total of 10,000 households using the project microgrid system,
the total residential power consumption will be 4,000 kW each month. The average commercial
consumption load is 500 kW. From analyzing monthly load values, May, June, July, August,
September and October can be considered as the peak months. To satisfy peak load months, the
power generation should prepare to operate with maximum power output to avoid a grid system
failure. In addition, distributed energy storage is required to maintain the supplied energy for a
period of time.

Figure 4. Hospital Load [5]

Figure 5. School Load Figure 6. Average Load Per House

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2.3 Distributed Energy Resources Characterization

2.3.1 - Storage

Solar energy is intermittent, meaning it is not consistently produced such as at night time
or during cloudy days. Residential areas typically use the most energy during hours of the day
when the sun is not shining, since during the day people will be at work. Without storage, energy
must be used at the time it is generated. In order to continually provide energy when it is needed,
energy storage technologies are necessary.
Batteries, or electrochemical storage, for solar PV cells can be implemented into the grid
and used for both short and long term storage. Short term storage is used for the order of
minutes, which allows solar operated buildings to run smoothly during output fluctuations such
as when clouds are passing over. Long term storage can be used on the order of days or weeks to
supplement energy demand when solar energy production is low or a weather event and power
outage has occurred.[8]
Batteries can be classified in two ways: capacity and power rating. A high capacity, low
power rating battery could provide a low amount of energy, about the amount to power a few
small appliances, for a long time. On the other hand, a low capacity, high power rating battery
could provide energy to an entire home but only for a short amount of time. On average, homes
will use about 30 kWh of energy per day, and a standard battery can store about 10 kWh of
energy. Solar batteries must retain some charge at all times to maintain their useful life. Depth of
discharge (DoD) refers to the amount of a battery’s capacity that has been used. For instance, if a
10 kWh battery has a DoD of 90 percent, no more than 9 kWh of the battery should be used
before recharging it. Generally speaking, a higher DoD means you will be able to utilize more of
your battery’s capacity. The charging and discharging process of a battery inherently loses some
energy during the transferring process. Storage batteries typically have an efficiency of 80%,
therefore if the full 10 kWh capacity is used for storage, the battery could release 8 kWh of
energy for use.[9]
This microgrid will utilize long term storage of the batteries to account for up to a week
long power outage from the utility. The batteries can provide 20% of the daily required energy,

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assuming the solar panels are still operational during the day. To determine how many batteries
are required for the proposed microgrid system the following calculations were done:

Energy requirement = 30 kWh * 0.2 daily required energy * 0.8 efficiency * 7 days/week
Energy requirement = 33.6 kWh per week
Assuming the batteries must have 1 kWh of unused energy at all times, 9 kWh per battery
can be released.
33.6 kWh / 9 kWh per battery = 3.73 batteries per home
If there are ~ 240 homes per section (1, 2, 3 shown above in figure 1)
3.73 batteries per home * 240 homes = 895 batteries per section
If a PV is installed on each home or work building, 4 batteries will also be installed per
home or building.

Solar PV batteries must be installed outdoors, protected from the elements, wildlife etc.,
covered and out of direct sunlight, and easily accessible. This will be considered a non-export
system as the batteries will not send energy back to the grid, rather energy will be used only
within the microgrid. Batteries can be installed in electrical boxes on the rooftops alongside the
solar panels.[10]
There are many options for battery type that can be used for solar PV storage. Lifespans
typically range between 5 and 15 years depending on the type of battery chosen for use. As seen
in figure 7 below, lithium is the most expensive option, but has the longest lifespan. To reduce
maintenance and continually replacing batteries, the investment in lithium batteries is worth the
performance. Lithium batteries also have a medium DoD, meaning more energy can be released
per each battery.[9]

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 Figure 7. Various Battery Types and Characteristics.[9]

The majority of environmental impacts come from mining the materials and the
production of the batteries. Each battery type has its own associated risk once fully assembled.
These can be seen in figure 8. Lithium batteries have safety risks and the highest risk of fire if
not handled correctly as lithium is highly flammable when exposed to liquid.[11]

Figure 8. Battery Types and Their Associated Risk.[11]

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2.3.2 - Generation

In the project microgrid, one new 44MW unit will be under construction at the UB south
campus. Distributed generation will be fossil fuel based generation, and it will burn coal to create
the heat, which in turn generates steam to drive turbines to generate electricity. It will be
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modified to have higher steam conditions such as 27.2 Mpa, 600 C, and by-pass
economiser[18]. Including the by-pass economiser will increase the net efficiency by about 0.2
percent. In the plant section, to process optimisation with 10 stages of feedwater heating with
295 oC feedwater temperature and circuit improvement, will increase efficiency gain by 1.1
percent. Improving steam turbine blade designs LP exhaust cross sectional area 75 m2 will
increase by 1.7 percent of efficiency. From the improved plant section, the net efficiency will
increase about 3 percent. The generation electrical output will be 44 MW with the efficiency of
41%. The NOx emissions will be kept low by using a combination of 24 low-NOx burners.

Figure 8. Configuration of Power Plants[18]

The 4.08 kW solar panels will be installed on each house roof. From figure 8, the
orientation of PV panels facing to the north will capture more radiation per kWp than the east
and west. The south will give the worst radiation for PV generation. However, the PV generation
on the horizontal panel will operate 100 percent of the time with an average of 5.7 kWh per day.
The PV generation panel facing to the north will operate 65.3 percent of the time with an average
of 3.7 kWh per day. The interaction between power generation and consumption during the day

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depends on the orientation of the panel where the PV modules are located [15]. Since the
maximum generation for PV panels is facing the sun, the PV generation on the horizontal panel
will maximize the amount of the energy in the day.

Figure 9. PV panels on different orientations [15]

2.4 Electrical and Thermal Infrastructure Characterization

The microgrid from the top down has one connection to the main grid at a 13.8 kV bus
which is located at the main substation of the microgrid. At this substation there is an additional
connection to a cogeneration facility which will provide heat and power to the community
connected to the microgrid. There are two feeds to our two secondary substations, each of which
feed half of the overall community. At these smaller substations, we provide 13.8 kV power for
large loads connected from our two main campuses such as boiler and chiller facilities. The
voltage is stepped down to 4,160V, 480V, and 208V with transformers sized to meet the
anticipated loads of the downstream devices. There are ties between the buses to allow for
redirection of current flow in the case of a line fault which would otherwise render the system
inoperable to increase overall resiliency and reliability.
There are distributed generation and storage facilities placed throughout the microgrid to
allow maximum stability and provide a minimum standard of power delivery when otherwise not
able to be generated from the larger grid. This is accomplished by monocrystalline PV units

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designed to provide enough power to cover most essential loads within the grid. Additional
4,160V generators are placed at each of our two smaller substations to provide enough power in
emergency situations to cover the loads for the hospital and university campus for at least a one
week period. This emergency switchover will occur through an ATS when normal power failure
occurs, switching to the emergency side contacts of the switch to receive power from the
generator after sending a signal for the startup of the generators. Battery storage is used within
the residential and commercial sectors to allow customers access to power in times when solar
will be insufficient and other supply will not be available.
At the utility feed there is revenue grade metering to account for precise power transfer to
and from the microgrid. Each of the feeders at the main substations and the two secondary
substations are equipped with power quality level metering to communicate this information to a
centralized SCADA system. Additionally at each feeder, there are current and voltage
transformers for required protection devices and metering instruments. Modifications will be
made to the current relaying and measurement instruments at the hospital and university
campuses to ensure that all the necessary values are recorded and able to be sent to the new main
substation.
Microprocessor based relaying will be scattered throughout the switchgear feeder and
incoming lines to ensure all protections needed to provide a robust and resilient system. There
are SEL-351S and SEL-551 to provide time-overcurrent and instantaneous trip functionalities
along the short distance feeders. For differential protection across a long distance line, SEL-387L
units are implemented, while SEL-387 and SEL-787 are used for transformer differential
protection with ground fault sensing capabilities. At each bus of a switchgear, bus fault
protection will be incorporated using an SEL-387 with current transformers (CT) connecting
from each of the respective feeders and lines of that bus. At the tie-breakers of the switchgear
there are SEL-351s to provide a synchronism check functionality along with overvoltage and
undervoltage. At each of the lines feedering other major buses of the system, there are SEL-351s
to provide directional overcurrent along with the previously mentioned functionalities to ensure
power flow in the anticipated direction. Each of these mentioned instruments, along with the
PowerLogic PM8000 series power quality metering device, will send their relevant data to a
centralized SCADA network at our main substation through a fiber based telecommunications
network. With all the relaying and the fiber based approach, the system is extremely resistant to

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various fault scenarios and power rerouting is possible in nearly all situations and weather
events. The system has the capability to withstand any one fault and in many cases multiple
faults depending on where the faults may occur.
The cogeneration facility will serve to offer sufficient heating for the University campus
as well as the Buffalo VA hospital and the surrounding buildings. From the heat generated by the
cogeneration plant there will be new hot water pipes installed to transfer the fluid to the existing
storage vessel for both sites. These additional pipes will serve to transfer and circulate hot water
through the two systems, only including the two critical facilities.

2.5 Microgrid and Building Controls Characterization

Controls of the microgrid will take place with a centralized SCADA network located at
our main substation. This SCADA network will take data from all of our relays, power quality
meters, and from each of the residential and commercial community controllers. This SCADA
tracks the storage levels at each of our large battery units, the generating capacity of each set of
community PV panels as well as the 4,160V generators, the energy flowing into and out of the
system through the grid connection, and the heat and power generated from the cogeneration
facility. All of these controls functionalities are new to the system and must be programmed to
work in a priority based manner.
First the system will always be connected to the grid unless a fault is seen on either the
large grid or microgrid side which may affect either system. If this occurs, the line feed from the
grid main circuit breaker will open to prevent further faults through the microgrid or upstream at
the grid. In the case of an emergency the priority based system will decide how power flows
throughout the system. The system will prioritize feeding power to our two critical facilities until
a stable power output is achieved from all of the energy storage and distributed generation
resources within the microgrid. When this occurs, the grid will shed all non-essential loads, this
would include normal power at the hospital and university campus, as well as 80% of loads in
the commercial and residential areas. The university will have access to all emergency power
loads while the hospital will have power for the critical branch, life-safety branch and equipment
branch.

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 After the system is deemed stable and additional capacity may be taken on by the
microgrid, the hospital, university, residential and commercial loads will gradually gain back
functionalities until they reach 100% of required capacity as long as the system deems it stable to
do so. In the event of a black-out or insufficient power generation for the system, the 4,160V
generators will transfer over to generate power for all critical loads while the normal loads will
be neglected until the system is back to balance.
As the solar generation is fixed, only the generator power output of the PV systems will
be monitored and stored. In the rare case of an excess storage of this solar energy, the microgrid
will be able to sell back this energy to the grid after conditioning the power to improve overall
grid efficiency. This could also be done to improve overall larger grid performance on a
contractual basis with authority having jurisdiction over the grid. The power conditional will
make sure the voltage, frequency, and ratio of active to reactive power will meet the demand of
the grid.

2.6 Information Technology (IT)/Telecommunications Infrastructure Characterization

All telecommunications done between the various components communicating to the

centralized SCADA network located at the mainsubstation of the microgrid are achieved by
redundant and dedicated fiber optic pairs. OM1 multimode fiber pairs will communicate the data
from the residential, commercial, university, and hospital to their respective secondary unit
substations. Redundant OS1 single mode fiber pairs will communicate between the two
secondary unit substations to the main substation SCADA network. This will be accomplished
with the addition of two switching facilities to the hospital and university campus to aggregate
this data and forward it to the main substation. Each of the relays in their respective switchgear
will communicate the known current, voltage and frequency information at the calculated nodes
to an SEL-3355 automation controller. This controller acts as a computer and hub for all the
information gathered from the relays which will be mirrored and sent from each of the two
secondary substations to the larger SCADA where it will be monitored and directly controlled
from. The hospital and university will have access to monitor all data and control only the data
and functionalities only related to their respective domain.

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 Figure 10. Information Technology Connections
The SCADA network will additionally collect data from the feed of the utility connection
to be able to monitor the power quality of the incoming feed. The IT system is extremely robust
with redundant fiber cables buried in freeze-proof corrugated piping between the substations and
from the main computing units of the residential and commercial areas to the secondary unit
substations. The IT network is designed to operate in the worst of weather conditions and
continue to operate with multiple faults throughout the system.

3. Assessment of the Microgrid’s Commercial and Financial Feasibility

3.1 Commercial Viability

During a power outage, the distribution energy system should be the emergency
generator to provide electricity. Distributed generation covers the generation of energy at a micro
level, distributed in locations near the end user by using renewable energy [3]. Distributed
generation refers to a variety of technologies to generate electricity at small scale. It could

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support reliable power to load and reduce electricity losses from transmission lines. There will
be two distributed generators in this project. These two distributed generators will supply the
power to critical loads in an emergency case. Since the hospital is part of the critical load, one of
the renewable distributed generators is located in the hospital building to generate power for
fully operating the hospital. Another distributed generator is located within the school campus
building. It will provide power to the school's main buildings and commercial stores. Residential
areas will be out of power until the microgrid gets back to the system.
When customers pay the utility, the bill statement will show different parts of electric
service charge. At first, there will be a delivery fee that is the cost of bringing the electricity from
the supplier. Mechant function charge will be the charge from the company’s cost to produce
electricity supply. Legacy transition charge will be the cost of electricity supply contracts for the
company. SBC fee is the clean energy fund. Clean energy delivery fee is associated with clean
energy standard program cost. The last one will be the electricity supply fee that is the electricity
supply price during the billing period.
All areas defined where the microgrid will be installed will use services from the utility.
Additionally, the 3 residential and 1 commercial area will use solar PV to supplement their
energy source. Buffalo VAMC will use a co-gen facility as well. The only stakeholders are those
that live and/or work where the microgrid will be installed. The positive impacts include various
sources of energy. If a fault occurs where a line or source goes down, another source such as
solar PV, the utility, or co-gen facility can provide the additional generation capacity. As for the
negative impacts, renewable energy sources can have higher costs than traditional sources.
The microgrid owner will control the integration of distributed generators, energy storage
systems, and loads to ensure that the power grid can supply sustainable, price competitive, and
reliable electricity. The purchaser of the power pays fees for the cost of the microgrid system.
Critical loads such as the hospital, and the school will get utility from distribution energy storage
and PV distributed generation in emergency cases. Uncritical loads such as residential areas, and
commercial will be out of power until the microgrid system gets back to normal. When
customers choose the projected microgrid system plan, there will not be a contract between the
company and customers. Since the projected microgrid system uses thermal energy generation,
the microgrid will provide hot water to the customers. The hot water will be provided 24 hours a
day, the customers do not need equipment to receive the hot water.

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3.2 Commercial Viability

In microgrids, the controllable components include a renewable source, dispatchable

sources, an energy storage system and demand side management. All components work together
to maximize the total microgrid profits. The load control scheme in the microgrid runs in
automated mode. In automated mode, the load receives control signals to turn on-off control [4].
To maximize the economic profits, the objective is to minimize total microgrid cost and to
consider the impact microgrids have on the main power grid and the environment. To maximize
the technical profit, the objective is to minimize the total power losses and voltage fluctuations.
To maximize the environmental benefits, the objective is to minimize the emission of gas from
distributed generation in order to meet environmental requirements.

3.3 Commercial Viability - Creating and Delivering Value

The most important task for the microgrid is for it to deliver the correct amount of energy
at all times. In doing so, the microgrid will benefit the community and all purchasers of the
electricity. This microgrid is designed to ensure that most of the load is operating at all times.
This is done with PV units to cover most of the load within the grid The microgrid is also routed
with the buses together to allow current to flow during line faults. During grid failure, there are
generators placed at the substations to cover the critical loads of the university campus and the
hospital for upto one week. The purchasers of the electricity will be metered at each of main
substations and the secondary substations using feeders. The information collected by these
feeders will then be sent to a SCADA system where it can be observed and managed.

3.4 Financial Viability

The greatest concern in building a microgrid is the cost of production and the revenue
available to be made. For the most part, a microgrid will make back its production value in the
long term. With crystalline PVs being one of the cheapest materials to make, it is very easy to
enter the PV production market. With varying costs based on residential, commercial, or
utility-scale sectors, the cost of production will vary based on the area being connected to the

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microgrid. For this microgrid, we have all 3 sectors within the microgrid but the PVs will be
built with a utility-scale sector based on the power required.
Utility-scale sectors on average produce 100MW. The factors of production include
“soft” costs, hardware costs, inverter costs, and module costs. Soft costs are the total cost of the
microgrid minus the hardware cost. Figure 11 shows the decline of solar production cost/W from
2010-2018 [12]. Along with the production costs of the solar farms, there are also costs
associated with the storage of energy. Assuming that lithium-ion batteries are utilized, the total
cost of the manufacturing of the microgrid can be upwards of $202 million or as low as $91
million. Figure 12 shows the total cost of solar production including storage based on the method
used [13].
For the consumer the cost of electricity has been estimated as $0.10/kWh for residential,
$0.08/kWh for commercial, and $0.05/kWh for utility-scale. These prices are with a 30%
investment tax credit. Figure 13 shows the real levelized cost of energy based on the sector and
with or without ITC [14].

Figure 11. PV system cost benchmark summary [12]

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Figure 12. Cost benchmarks for PV-plus-storage systems (4-hour duration) in different sites and
the same site (DC-coupled and AC-coupled cases) [13]

Figure 13. PV Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis [14]

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3.5 Legal Viability

The overall project will be managed by a design firm in coordination with the authority
having jurisdiction (AHJ). The design firm will have a team which will be responsible to
coordinate between architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, civil engineers,
environmental engineers, and electrical engineers with a New York State licensed PE and AIA
licensed architect. In the case of any poor design work or failure to meet design safety
requirements would result in legal actions to the design firm. This design firm will be responsible
to carry out all functions possible within the house and wherever additional assistance is needed
or not available in house, they will be responsible to sub-contract out to a qualified firm.

All new infrastructure and equipment installed to achieve the goal of the microgrid will
be maintained and owned by a contracted party which will be capable of monitoring the system
at any point from the main substation where the head-end of the IT equipment would also be
located in an adjacent room. This contracted party would consist of some technicians and
engineers capable of maintaining the system and coordinating with the University and VAMC
facility engineers, along with the utility when necessary.

The amount of data collected from the University and VAMC is based on the request of
those parties. At the bare minimum, all line currents and voltages at the 4,160V bus and higher
voltages are needed to track the power flow throughout the system. Information per building can
be tracked by smart meters if needed. The option of keeping this information only to the campus
by virtual local access networks (VLAN) is possible if the client wishes to keep this information
and chooses not to send it to the microgrid controllers. The residential and commercial clients
require only smart meter connections to each of the houses to show power usage.

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4: Develop Information for Benefit Cost Analysis

4.1 Facility and Customer Description

The microgrid is being delivered to multiple loads with varying criticality and values.
There are two critical loads being the Buffalo VA Medical Center and the University at Buffalo
south campus which are large commercial/industrial facilities. The next most critical load is the
small commercial businesses on Bailey Ave. Lastly, there are three residential areas that are
connected to the microgrid. In one of the residential areas, there is a building that might need
more attention than regular residential homes. That building is the Lofts at University Heights
apartment building in residential area two. This apartment building could incur multiple
ratepayers because of the chance that multiple families can move into apartments. For Buffalo
VAMC, the average annual electricity demand is around 510 MWh with a peak electric demand
of 685 kW. For UB south campus, the average electricity demand is 5 MWh with a peak electric
demand of 8.7 kWh. For the residential areas, with each house averaging 30 kWh per day, the
average annual demand is 11 MWh with an average peak demand of 618 W. During a major
power outage, the majority of the demand from the microgrid would be from Buffalo VAMC
first and then UB’s south campus. The commercial buildings are the next priority after the
critical loads, and then finally the residential areas have the least priority of demand during a
major power outage.

4.2 Characterization of Distributed Energy Resources

Distributed energy storage helps to maintain the supplied energy for a period of time. It
helps the system to provide smooth output and control the ramp rate to eliminate the rapid
voltage and power swings. Distributed energy storage also provides the voltage support that will
help maintain the voltage through injecting and absorbing the active and reactive power while
the system operates at voltage limited value exceeding the set value. Lithium-ion batteries will
be chosen for the Microgrid application.. These batteries feature high specific energy with 260
Kh/Kg, high energy density 600 Wh/L, and power density and cycle lifetime from 2,000 to
3,000 cycles. It also features high charge/discharge efficiency of 80% to 92%. The microgrid

25
includes a 500 kWh battery storage system, and connects the control systems and power
distribution equipment. Only 400 kWh of energy storage can be utilized. In the battery storage,
battery management units will be included to monitor the state of voltage, current and
temperature. Switching modules will be used to allocate charge/discharge current needed to
balance the voltage of the battery. The battery energy storage system has the power conversion
system that can charge/discharge power commands from the energy management system of the
microgrid and makes the best effort to meet the requirements.

4.3 Capacity Impacts and Ancillary Services

The roots of microgrid power system issues are found in the electrical distribution
system. The current electricity grid does not have modern technologies and increasing
complexity in power generations, control centers, and transmission infrastructure. In figure 14, it
shows the utilities are investing in distribution automation as the precursor to achieve increasing
capabilities over the time [6]. The expectation of investments in the distribution network will
enable utilities to use the required application of energy management, outage restoration
distribution, and automation. For each target application, the volume and frequency of data needs
to be determined to design and implement an appropriate end to end communication plumbing
system.

Figure 14: Investing in Distribution [6]

26
 Although the plumbing is high cost, the requirement of utility applications has full
confidence in the ability of communication technologies, protocols and standards. These will be
able to meet all functional requirements of a utility’s smart grid capabilities and applications.

4.4 Project Costs

To analyze the total cost of microgrids, the cost will be described based on the number of
distributed energy resource assets, energy storage, control architecture and amount of renewable
energy capacity. Thus, the total costs of $125 million will be projected for designing this
microgrid system. Microgrid cost components can be divided into distributed energy resources,
microgrid controller, additional infrastructure and soft cost [2]. In distributed energy resources,
the cost will include fossil fuel generation, solar photovoltaic and energy storage. It will be
approximately $80 million. Microgrid controllers such as the primary controller and the
secondary controller, will cost $5 million. In infrastructure, the cost will be $10 million in the
distribution system, information technology, communication, and metering. The remaining $30
million will be soft costs. The soft costs will include the engineering, construction,
commissioning and regulatory. Overall, the analysis of the total microgrid cost per megawatt will
be at $2.1 million per Megawatt of distributed energy resources installed.

4.5 Costs to Maintain Service during a Power Outage

Microgrid systems can be damaged by the severe weather. In the project area, the
estimated cost of weather related outages is changed by the year. The cost calculations need to
show that between 20 and 25 percent of the annual cost of weather-related power outages are due
to lost output. The estimated average cost of power outages caused by the severe weather would
be $1.8-3.3 million. If there are record-breaking storms, the cost can be much higher. The costs
can be expected to increase as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme
weather events [4]. Thus, there will be the requirement of preparing for the challenges posed by
climate changes. The new technology will increase the resilience and reliability of the grid. Thus,
the investment of new technology will cost $4.5 million for prevention of power outage by

27
severe weather. Developing a smarter, more resilient electric grid is important to ensure the
supply of reliable power.

Figure 15: Cost of Maintaining Service During a Power Outage by Year [4]

4.6 Services Supported by the Microgrid

The Microgrid provides supplemental services that customers can receive. The
community microgrid services a public purpose, such as fire station, police department, cell
towers, water services and wastewater during an emergency. Community microgrids can meet
general requirements by providing technical support to replace or supplement microgrid services
on a daily basis [7].

5.0 Conclusion
The most difficult obstacle for a microgrid within New York is to offer redundancy and
resiliency with a low enough cost to compete with the already low-cost hydroelectric power
delivered by the utility. Currently 70% New York’s power is generated by three primary
hydroelectric power plants [16]. With the proposed design we can achieve what is likely the most
efficient and robust system possible but with a higher cost. As cost was taken into consideration
when choosing a feasible system for generation, storage, communication, and protection, this
system will provide the greatest benefit for the community and the larger grid. If possible,
government incentives could be created to island off sections of the grid by pieces. This type of
design would be able to develop microgrids in a modular manner which could communicate with
one another. A scalable solution such as this would reduce costs of building the microgrid and
alternative generation efficiencies will also increase to create a competitive cost to current
hydroelectric rates.

28
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