Resilience of Collaborative Microgrids Towards volatility: Seasonal Effects, Demand Fluctuations, and Weather Variations

One of the primary issues experienced by contemporary energy systems is the volatility and uncertainty of weather conditions. Conventional energy systems depend on unsustainable sources such as coal or gas to cope with the uncertainty of demand. Energy systems relying on renewables such as wind and solar face the same demand uncertainty but also have to cope with the variability of weather. Handling this double-sided variability is a critical challenge of modern energy systems. This research evaluates the power volatility absorption from utility grids by collaborative microgrids (MGs), by using a pre-contracted order updates (COU) operational strategy at the MG level. This strategy distinguishes the collaborative MG employing the COU strategy from the selfish MG utilizing the conventional spot order update strategy. The purpose of this research is to investigate how real-world uncertainties, such as forecasting errors and demand fluctuations impact the collaborative MG system. The resilience and robustness of the COU approach were assessed against weather and demand fluctuations. Seasonal effect was analysed to determine the optimal COU scenario across seasons. The results indicate that the COU strategy, particularly the planned volatile demand scenario, demonstrates adaptability to all seasonal fluctuations, reducing the unplanned volatile demand by 87% compared to selfish MG during the most volatile season (Winter). In the context of extreme weather events, especially in the absence of wind, the collaborative MG diminished the unplanned volatile demand by 93% in contrast to the selfish MG.