Multi-agent approach for synthetic inertia and fast reserve service provided by a Distributed Energy Storage System

Renewable Energy Source plants represent an excellent compromise between environmental sustainability and power supply. At the same time, their adoption coincides with the gradual decommissioning of coal-fired power plants. This poses significant challenges for the electrical power system in terms of available power reserve and frequency regulation, making the electric power system more susceptible to abrupt changes in load and/or generation. This issue could be mitigated by integrating Distributed Energy Storage Systems with renewable energy sources through the adoption of a Virtual Energy Storage system approach. This integration would help to eliminate, or rather, contain, the frequency variations associated with an imbalance between demand and generation. A Multi-Agent System strategy is proposed to manage the energy flows of each energy storage system operating as a Virtual Energy Storage System within an energy community framework, under the oversight of a generic Distribution Network Operator. The goal is to compensate for power imbalances and therefore frequency observed by the Transmission Network Operator. After a brief mention of frequency regulation in a scenario of strong renewable energy source penetration, the proposed Multi-agent System approach, implemented in a Python simulation environment, is illustrated, and subsequently tested on a distribution network portion.