Multi-Microgrid Energy Management System in Times of 5G

Microgrids promise an efficient integration of de-centralized energy resources (DER), mostly fueled by renewable energy sources (RES), and prosumers - pro-active consumers with own generation and storage capacities that can actively manage their load. The arising multi-microgrid concept inter-connects several microgrids in order to increase the operational stability and to raise additional economic benefits for the single microgrid by aggregating spare flexibility from the microgrids and providing it to the utility and energy markets as demand side management (DSM) services. Current research literature discusses both approaches extensively but so far microgrids have not spread widely because of extensive installation costs and operational difficulties. An open software platform based on available standards and control algorithms would decrease these barriers. This paper provides an initial requirement analysis for a multi-/microgrid energy management system (EMS) software platform implementation considering advancements in the telecommunication sector and especially the upgrade to the fifth generation (5G) of the wireless network. At the end of this paper, we present a concept for a scalable test bed for such platform implementations.