Microgrid Value of Ramping

The growing penetration of renewable generation in distribution networks, primarily deployed by end-use electricity customers, is changing the traditional load profile and inevitably makes supply-load balancing more challenging for grid operators. Leveraging the potential flexibility of existing microgrids, that is to help with supply-load balance locally, is a viable solution to cope with this challenge and mitigate existing net load variability and intermittency in distribution networks. This paper discusses this timely topic and determines the microgrid value of ramping based on its available reserve using a cost-benefit analysis. To this end, a microgrid ramping-oriented optimal scheduling model is developed and tested through numerical simulations to prove the effectiveness and the merits of the proposed approach in microgrid ramping valuation.