Abstract
Conference Title: 2017 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM) Conference Start Date: 2017, July 16 Conference End Date: 2017, July 20 Conference Location: Chicago, IL, USA Prosumers, as electricity consumers with the ability of local electricity production, are rapidly increasing in the U.S. and around the world, and are enabling alternative electricity supply options to consumers. Prosumers, however, still face challenges in terms of reliability when the supply of power from the utility grid is interrupted. This paper investigates the benefits of elevating a prosumer to a provisional microgrid (PMG) and its impact on improving the reliability by reducing potential load curtailments during grid disturbances In addition, the impact on increasing the economic benefits of the coupled microgrid (CMG) is examined. Independent and integrated microgrid optimal scheduling models are developed, and further simulated through numerical examples, to identify merits of the PMGs over prosumers and the important role they can play in the distribution grid.