A Comparison of Microgrid Topologies Considering Both Market Operations and Reliability

This article investigates and compares various types of microgrids in the literature. The comparison is concerned with the economic operation of the micro-sources employed in different topologies and the reliability of the end-users. Also, the effect of each component on the performance of the overall microgrid is discussed in detail, e.g., the individual and centralized power converters, etc. The numerical simulation of a case study shows that the single AC and three wire network microgrid types are predominant over two others, namely single DC and hybrid AC-DC networks. The AC microgrid shows its benefits in market operations, while the three-wire network takes advantage of customizing loads as its reliability preferences. The DC microgrid is the worst case, suffering from high power losses and poor reliability.