Abstract
Microgrids have emerged as a viable solution to incorporate renewable distributed energy sources into conventional power systems, leading to the decarbonization and decentralization of the electricity supply. Microgrids and their extended adaptation are considered promising options to advance today's electricity grid. However, the electricity supplied by renewable sources is not stable enough to be depended on to maintain optimal operating conditions for the microgrid. Thus, microgrids employ auxiliary electricity generation and storage units to mitigate the drawbacks due to the intermittence in electricity supply from renewable energy sources. These units are preferred because of their ability to adjust electricity output to keep the operational efficiency of microgrids as high as possible. Due to the stochastic nature of the microgrids, real-time data collected via measurement units hold critical importance to be able to timely react to the changes that occurred in the environment. Considering the massive amount of data needed to be processed for efficient planning of the microgrid operations, the existence of a communication link that can provide reliable and fast service is essential. In this study, we highlight the need for capable communication links to enable large-scale applications of multiple microgrids and develop a scenario-based mixed-integer linear programming (SB-MILP) model to solve the energy management problem, then we simulate the operation of multiple microgrids to examine the effect of communication network properties on the cost-efficiency of microgrids operating collaboratively. We conclude by providing insights on handling a massive amount of data using envisioned communication technologies within multiple interconnected microgrids.