Strategies for Controlling Microgrid Networks with Energy Storage Systems: A Review

Distributed Energy Storage Systems are considered key enablers in the transition from the traditional centralized power system to a smarter, autonomous, and decentralized system operating mostly on renewable energy. The control of distributed energy storage involves the coordinated management of many smaller energy storages, typically embedded within microgrids. As such, there has been much recent interest related to controlling aspects of supporting power-sharing balance and sustainability, increasing system resilience and reliability, and balancing distributed state of charge. This paper presents a comprehensive review of decentralized, centralized, multiagent, and intelligent control strategies that have been proposed to control and manage distributed energy storage. It also highlights the potential range of services that can be provided by these storages, their control complications, and proposed solutions. Specific focus on control strategies based upon multiagent communication and reinforcement learning is a main objective of this paper, reflecting recent advancements in digitalization and AI. The paper concludes with a summary of emerging areas and presents a summary of promising future directions.