IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 62, NO.
2, FEBRUARY 2015
Optimized Multiple Microgrid-Based Clustering
of Active Distribution Systems Considering
Communication and Control Requirements
Seyed Ali Arefifar, Member, IEEE, Yasser Abdel-Rady I. Mohamed, Senior Member, IEEE, and
Tarek El-Fouly
Abstract—An optimized communication and control
infrastructure, based on the microgrid building block
concept, for active distribution systems is essential to
facilitate powerful control framework under the smart grid
paradigm. In this paper, a novel methodology for designing
a communication and control infrastructure is presented.
The new design takes into account both communication
system and distribution system-related aspects. The pro-
posed design facilitates systematic and optimized clus-
tering of the distribution system into a set of virtual
microgrids with optimized communication requirements
while considering the power quality aspects, character-
istics of distributed generation units, distributed energy
storage units, and distributed reactive sources. The new de-
sign facilitates robust infrastructure for smart distribution
systems operation and control, e.g., self-healing control
and optimized system-level operation, by using virtual mi-
crogrids as building blocks in future distribution systems.
The motivations, conceptual design, problem formulation
and solution algorithms are presented in this paper. The
well-known PG&E 69-bus distribution system is selected
as a test case and through several sensitivity studies, the
effect of optimization coefficients on the design, and the ro-
bustness of the algorithm are investigated. Finally, the
algorithm is tested on the IEEE 123-bus distribution system.
Index Terms—Communication system, control center,
graph partitioning, microgrid, power imbalance, Tabu
search (TS).
I. I NTRODUCTION
P OWER engineers nowadays are facing new challenges to
improve the operation of power distribution systems [1].
Introduction of renewable energy resources and energy storage
devices on one hand and the increase in the rate of electricity
consumption, associated costs of large power generating plants
and environmental issues on the other hand, have manifested
the need for new planning, operation and control strategies in
power distribution systems [2]–[6]. Through the incorporation
Manuscript received October 17, 2013; revised March 15, 2014 and
May 12, 2014; accepted May 24, 2014. Date of publication August 27,
2014; date of current version January 7, 2015.
S. A. Arefifar and Y. A.-R. I. Mohamed are with the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton,
AB T6G 2V4, Canada (e-mail: arefifarr@ieee.org; yasser_rady@ieee.
org).
T. El-Fouly is with CanmetENERGY, Natural Resources Canada
(NRCan), Varennes, QC J3X 1S6, Canada (e-mail: telfouly@nrcan.
gc.ca).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2014.2352212
0278-0046 © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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711
of new digital and intelligent devices, the power grids are
moving toward a faster-acting, potentially more controllable
and reliable grid, the so-called “smart grid” [7]. If implemented
and operated properly, the smart distribution system can bring
lots of benefits and advantages to the environment, electric
power suppliers and electricity consumers [8]. For this reason,
they have been under study from several aspects including:
smart grid automation [9], unbalanced optimal power flow [10],
loss minimization [11], distributed-energy-resource manage-
ment [3], control and protection [12], optimal voltage regula-
tion [13], and failure identification [14].
In the context of smart distribution systems, a large number
of emerging devices with wide band of control actions and
options will be adopted. This includes distributed and renew-
able generation units, storage units, custom power devices,
electric vehicle charging stations, demand-side management
controllers, etc. With the increased penetration of these de-
vices along with conventional system devices, the control and
operation of bulk distribution systems can be an issue. A
robust communication and control infrastructure is essential
to facilitate optimized operation of such bulk systems with a
large number of controllable devices and operation scenarios
[15]–[19]. Two important communication and control strategies
exist for communications and control design in a power system,
namely, they are centralized and decentralized [20], [21].
In the centralized scenario, all the controllable devices receive
the control commands from a central control center. Despite
the advantage of lower costs for installation of communication
and control centers, this option has a higher length of commu-
nication media, relatively larger delays and lower reliability.
The other option is to cluster the controllable devices, such
as distributed generators (DGs), storage devices, controllable
loads, etc., into groups and construct communication zones so
that each zone has its own control center, including voltage and
frequency control units. All the control centers are then super-
vised by a central control center that is at a higher control level
in the designed infrastructure. Through simulations on the IEEE
118-bus test network, it is shown in [21] that having almost the
same total costs for both centralized and decentralized systems,
the latency and reliability in the communication network will
be improved in a decentralized infrastructure.
The question here is what the best scenario is to virtually
split the network into different communication and control
zones and what items should be considered in the design so
that both utility and customers get the maximum benefits.
A good communication infrastructure should be fast, secure,
reliable, and convenient in terms of controlling the devices at
 712
different system operating conditions. These parameters and the
installation costs are important and should be considered in an
infrastructure design; however, there are some other issues that
are also worth to be considered in the planning problem. Self-
healing is a relatively new problem in smart distribution sys-
tems, which deals with the algorithms for taking preventative
actions or to handle problems after they occur [22]. The ability
of a distribution network to self-heal in disturbance conditions
is one of the important characteristics of future smart grids
[23]. Under some circumstances, such as disturbances, a self-
healing action is partitioning the system into islands by using
reconfiguration switches so that the healthy part of the sys-
tem remains untouched by the disturbance. Supply-adequacy-
based optimum construction of microgrids in active distribution
systems is addressed in [3], however, communication system
requirements are not considered in the design stage.
Considering the importance of both communication and
self-healing related aspects of system partitioning, this paper
presents a novel methodology to find the optimum communica-
tion and control infrastructure in a smart distribution system.
The proposed design simplifies the control of large systems
with high penetration of DG resources in grid-connected and
islanded modes of operation. It also facilitates systematic and
optimized clustering of the distribution system into a set of
virtual microgrids with optimized communication and control
requirements, while considering the power quality aspects and
characteristics of DG units, distributed energy storage units
(DESR), and distributed reactive sources (DRS). The new
design facilitates robust infrastructure for smart distribution
systems operation and control, e.g., self-healing control and
optimized system-level operation, by using virtual microgrids
as building blocks in future distribution systems. The proposed
design is in line with the recently developed IEEE Std. 1547.6,
which presented a microgrid structure as the building blocks of
active distribution systems [24]. The contributions of this paper
to the research field are the following:
1) development of a systematic strategy for designing a
communication and control infrastructure in smart grids;
2) consideration of communication network costs such as
costs of building a new control center, costs of the com-
munication media and routers in the design;
3) consideration of communication network properties such
as network latency and reliability in the design;
4) taking into account the power-related aspects, such as
power quality issues, characteristics of DG, DESR and
DRS units, in making communication zones as a step
toward an improved self-healing action and coordinated
control actions in a smart grid.
II. M OTIVATIONS AND C ONCEPTS OF D ESIGN
The motivations for having an optimum communication and
control infrastructure for a smart distribution system, as well as
both communications related and power-related aspects of the
design, are explained here.
A. Motivations for the Proposed Design
The problem defined in this paper is a planning problem;
therefore, the audience and user of the proposed approach will
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 62, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015
be mostly the utilities. With the high penetration of distributed
resources (DG), the communication infrastructure should cover
key system nodes where DG units, energy storage devices,
major loads, etc., are installed. The utility will use the com-
munication infrastructure for monitoring and control of large
and complicated future distribution systems. In this context,
the ownership of DG does not affect the planning aspects of
the communication system. The communication infrastructure
should cover both customer-owned and utility-owned DG units
to ensure complete access to key generators and loads. When
the infrastructure is designed, both customers and utility will
benefit from it as it facilitates the realization of better control
and operation algorithms for distribution systems. Some of
these benefits are summarized in the following.
1) Distributed Control Strategy: The controllable devices
in a distribution system can be controlled in centralized
or decentralized ways. Other than the improvements in
reliability and latency of the communication network,
in a decentralized approach, the system controllability
becomes easier because of the fewer amounts of control-
lable devices in each control zone.
2) Intelligent Monitoring Options: The number of intelligent
electronic devices for monitoring, protection, and other
purposes such as smart metering, power quality mon-
itoring, and distribution system automation have been
increased in distribution systems, as part of smart grid
projects. Improvements in smart grid communications
system makes the data captured by these new devices
available to multisubscribers and serves multiple intelli-
gent electronic devices infrastructures [25].
3) Advanced Fault Location: In case of faults, the avail-
ability of additional feeder data helps to improve the
accuracy of the fault location methods and subsequently,
improve the self-healing control actions [25], [26]. With
the designed communication and control infrastructure,
more data will be available and as the microgrids are
smaller than the whole system, the fault locating task will
be more accurate and the required self-healing actions
will be done more conveniently.
4) Advanced Self-Healing Control Actions: Self-healing
usually includes system reconfiguration, load shedding
or controlling the dispatchable generators’ output powers.
Since in the proposed infrastructure, each zone has min-
imum power imbalance and its own control center at the
same time, the self-healing control actions can be done
with minimum required actions and the disconnected
microgrids can operate in autonomous mode with less
amount of load shedding
5) Self-Adequate Microgrids: When the microgrids are con-
structed in a distribution system, the less the generation-
load imbalance within them will result in the more
self-sufficient microgrids. Thus, more loads can be sup-
plied in case of autonomous-mode operation of micro-
grids in the distribution system, and the energy losses on
power lines connecting the microgrids will be minimized.
6) More Reliable Distribution Systems: Reliability is an
important issue in designing current distribution systems.
With the proposed design, the system will be split into
AREFIFAR et al.: CLUSTERING OF SYSTEMS CONSIDERING COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL REQUIREMENTS
several self-adequate microgrids. Other than easing the
self-healing control actions, which increase the reliability
of the system, the self-sufficiency of microgrids will
also improve the reliability indexes such as the System
Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI), System
Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), etc.
The aforementioned items present some justifications and
motivations behind the proposed communication and control
infrastructure design strategy. Some specific aspects of the
design such as communications- and power-related aspects are
explained with more details in the following sections.
B. Communication and Control-Related Aspects
The communication network is an essential part of the power
system as a failure in communication may affect the operation
of the electrical system itself. Furthermore, an optimized com-
munication infrastructure is essential to facilitate smart grid
control and operation functions, such as self-healing control
and distributed energy management. Thus, the communication
infrastructure will be as important as the electrical infras-
tructure [27]. The communication network performs the data
exchange between data resources, control centers, and control-
lable devices; therefore, it will be a vital part of wide-area mea-
surement systems, wide-area control systems, and wide-area
protection systems. The base-line communication and control
infrastructure is usually designed for long-term purposes, and
it may evolve depending on new system-level needs. At the
base-line planning stage, however, there are some issues that
should be considered. In case of future needs for upgrading
the communication system, the optimum design should be
updated accordingly. Key long-term objectives are considered
in this paper as a typical base-line communication and control
infrastructure design for smart and active distribution systems.
Three important factors are cost-related issues, latency, and
reliability of the network. The cost-related issues include the
costs of communication media, communicating routers and
communication and voltage and frequency control centers and
the latency/reliability of the communication system is mainly
based on the latency/reliability of communication media and
the communicating routers. Therefore, the optimum infras-
tructure is the one with optimum number of communication
zones and minimal total communication costs. In spite of the
minimized costs, the system latency should be kept less than a
threshold, and the minimum required system reliability should
be maintained.
C. Power-Related Aspects
In response to disturbances, a self-healing system reconfig-
uration that splits a power network into self-sufficient islands
can stop the propagation of disturbances and avoid cascading
events. Traditionally, only the active power has been considered
in system partitioning [28], [29]. However, by considering
the reactive power as an important role player in supporting
the voltage profile and knowing that a significant mismatch
of reactive power supply and demand causes high- or low-
voltage conditions within islands, both real and reactive power
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713
balance can be considered in system partitioning [30]. Although
the controllable generation and load must be balanced once
a system partitions, if we consider minimizing the power
imbalance in the zones and in steady-state conditions at the
planning stage, balancing generation and load considering the
system dynamics will be much more convenient and effective in
the operating stage. Therefore, an optimum partitioned system
is the one with minimum generation-load imbalance in each
zone. With the proposed design in this paper, each island can
behave as a microgrid and may operate in grid connected or
islanded mode, with minimum interactions from other parts of
the system. Moreover, the power balancing in each microgrid
will be done easily, as each microgrid has its own control
center. It should be noted that since the research in this paper
is a long-term planning problem, the system transients and
dynamics, which may occur during islanding process and do
not last for a long period, are not considered here. To account
for special distribution system characteristics associated with
power balancing, such as the intermittent nature of DG units
and loads, a probabilistic power balancing approach is proposed
in this paper.
D. Combination of the Two Aspects
Both communication and control and power-related aspects
are taken into account for finding the optimum communication
and control infrastructure. With this design, from the commu-
nication and control point of view, the whole system can be
controlled more conveniently in grid-connected and islanded
mode of operation by using decentralized control centers to
optimize the overall operational aspects of the system. From
the power point of view, clustering the system into self-
sufficient microgrids, regardless of grid-connected or islanded
mode operation, will ease the self-healing control actions such
as system reconfigurations, load shedding or controlling the
DGs outputs in case of disturbances. One obvious advantage
of this formulation is that if for any reason, the system is
split into zones, each zone has the minimum generation-load
imbalance and, at the same time, has its own control center.
In this scenario, the preventive actions in the disturbed zones
and healthy zones can be performed more conveniently and
more intelligently. Although in some zones the generation level
may not meet the required consumption at the peak load level,
the islanding may be possible at light-load periods or through
minimum load shedding actions, and this will be beneficial for
both utility and customers. Furthermore, the created virtual mi-
crogrids can be controlled in a coordinated manner to optimize
the overall system-level operational aspects. In other words,
the extended formulation proposed in this paper provides a
flexible infrastructure for the distribution system operation by
applying the concept of virtual microgrids. The main design
concepts proposed in this paper and how the virtual microgrids
are clustered are shown in Fig. 1.
III. M ODELING OF L OADS AND DGs
To obtain an optimum communication and control infras-
tructure in the presence of the uncertain nature of DG units
and loads, the characteristics of loads and DG units should be
 714 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 62, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015

power of PV modules can be easily generated. The Beta PDF

used to describe the probabilistic nature of solar irradiance, is
as shown in
Γ(α + β)
fb (s) = × s(α−1)
Γ(α)Γ(β)
× (1 − s)(β−1) 0 ≤ s ≤ 1, α ≥ 0, β ≥ 0 (1)

where s is solar irradiance (kW/m2 ), fb (s) is Beta distribution

function of s, and α and β are parameters of the Beta distribu-
tion function. The parameters of Beta distribution function are
calculated by using the mean (μ) and standard deviation (σ) of
random variable s, as shown in
 
μ × (1 + μ) μ×β
β = (1 − μ)× −1 & α= . (2)
σ 2 1−μ
The Beta PDF is generated for each time segment (one hour
for this research) and the probabilistic output power of the PV
modules is then calculated using the following equations [31]:
 
Fig. 1. Main design concepts and the virtual microgrids. NOT − 20
Tcy = TA + say (3)
0.8
considered in the design. For this purpose, DG units are mod- Iy = say [Isc + Ki (Tc − 25)] (4)
eled as typical combination of three types of DGs, including
Vy = Voc − Kv Tcy (5)
photovoltaic (PV) modules, wind turbines, and biomass gen-
P sy (say ) = N × F F × Vy × Iy (6)
erators. The nature of renewable resources are probabilistic;
VMPP IMPP
therefore, the solar irradiance and wind speed for each hour of FF = (7)
the day are modeled by Beta and Weibull probability density Voc Isc
functions (PDFs) by using historical data [31]. To get the PDFs, where Tcy and TA are cell and ambient temperature during
the study can be done over a selected period of one year, and state y (◦ C); Kv and Ki are voltage and current temperature
four days can be selected as representatives of four seasons. coefficients (V /◦ C and A/◦ C); NOT is nominal operating
The day representing each season is further divided into 24-h temperature of cell per ◦ C; F F is fill factor; Isc and Voc are
time segments, each having a PDF for solar irradiance and short circuit current (A) and open circuit voltage (V ); N is the
wind speed. The load is also modeled as a firm generation number of cells; IMPP and VMPP are current (A) and voltage
using IEEE-RTS [32]. In order to integrate the output power (V ) at maximum power point; P sy is the output power of
of PV modules and wind turbines as multistate variables in the PV module during state y, and say is the average solar
the formulations, the continuous PDF of each is divided into irradiance of state y.
different states. The selected number of states affects the accu-
racy and complexity of the formulation. In this research, the
B. Wind Turbine Generators
output power of the wind turbine and PV modules for each
hour of the day is divided into 12 segments. This means for The output power of wind turbines depends on the wind
each hour of the day, we have 12 states of solar DG power and speed and parameters of the wind-power conversion curve.
12 states of wind DG power with different probabilities. Similar to the PV module generators, once the wind speed is
Assuming that solar irradiance and wind speed states are in- modeled for each hour by using a PDF, the probabilistic func-
dependent, the probability of any combination of the load and tion of the output power of wind turbines can be generated eas-
generation is obtained by convolving the two probabilities. ily. The wind speed is usually modeled using the Rayleigh PDF,
Therefore, for each hour, we have 144 (12×12) number of which is a special case of the Weibull PDF, as shown in (8) [31]
states with different probabilities and for each day there are      
2v v 2
3456 (24×144) states. To obtain the power and energy losses f (v) = 2
× exp − (8)
c c
for the system, the deterministic power flow is run for each
state, and the results are accumulated considering the proba- where c is called the scale index. The mean value of wind speed
bility of each state. (v) is calculated using the historical data for each time segment
and then the scale index can be calculated, as shown in
A. PV Module Generators ∞ ∞      
2v v 2
vm = vf (v)dv = v 2
× exp − dv
The output of each PV module depends on the amount of c c
0 0
solar irradiance, ambient temperature and characteristics of the √
module itself. When the solar irradiance is modeled for each π
= c, c ≈ 1.128vm . (9)
hour by using a PDF, the probabilistic function of the output 2

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AREFIFAR et al.: CLUSTERING OF SYSTEMS CONSIDERING COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL REQUIREMENTS 715

The output power of a wind turbine is calculated using where LoMC is the total length of communication media,
⎧ N oRC is the total number of routers, and N oZ is the number
⎨ 0, 0 ≤ vaw ≤ vci , vco ≤ vaw
−vci ) of communication or control zones. The coefficients α, β, and
P vw (vaw ) = Prated × (vvaw , vci ≤ vaw ≤ vr
⎩ r −vci γ are the cost of communication media, cost of each router, and
Prated , vr ≤ vaw ≤ vco cost of installing a communication and control center (including
(10)
voltage and frequency controller units). Their dimensions are
where vci , vr , and vco are the cut-in, rated, and cut-out speed $/km, $/router and $/(control center), respectively. Minimizing
of wind turbine, respectively; P vw is the output power of wind F1 will minimize the total cost of communication infrastructure
turbine during state w; and vaw is the average wind speed of by finding the communication-based virtual microgrids.
state w. The other objective is to minimize the real and reactive power
imbalance between generation and loads within the zones. This
C. Biomass Generators is a step toward 1) having a self-healing strategy for system
reconfiguration that splits the power system into self-sufficient
The biomass generators are assumed to be firm generators islands in response to disturbances; and 2) creating virtual
with constant output powers without uncertainty. In case of microgrids where controllable devices that affect the power
uncertainty in the factors that affect the availability of biomass, flow (e.g., DG units, demand-side management, etc.) can be
such as rain, the biomass DGs’ output powers can be modeled clustered. This objective function can be formulated as
in a similar way that has been presented for PV module or
wind turbine generators by using the probability function of a × Pindex + b × Qindex
F2 = (13)
availability of the biomass for the planning period. (N oZ − 1)

where Pindex and Qindex are probabilistic indexes to represent

D. DESRs and DRSs the probabilistic real and reactive power of the virtual cut set
The DESRs are modeled as loads during the charging period lines and are calculated, as shown in (14). The denominator is
and as generators during discharging period. It is also assumed set to normalize the cost function
that the DESRs charge only during off-peak hours of the day

N 
N
and discharge only during the on-peak hours. Therefore, for Pindex = |Pijk |×ρk & Qindex = |Qijk |×ρk (14)
each period of 24 h, there is one charge-discharge cycle. A con- k=1 k=1
straint has been introduced on the amount of power generated
by the DESRs, as shown in where i and j are the nodes, which connect two zones to-
 
PDESR_i,t ≤ PLoad_j,t ∀t (11)
i j
where Pload_j,t is the real power consumed at bus j, time t and
PDESR_i,t is the real power generated by DESRs at bus i and
time t. This constraint keeps the output power of DESRs always
less than the total demand during each hour and guarantees that
the reverse power flow is coming from the DG units during any
hour. The DRSs are also modeled as simple reactive sources
with specific rated capacity.
IV. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
Optimization problems are constructed from an objective
function and some constraints. This section explains the pro-
posed problem formulation and associated constraints.
A. Optimization Objective Function
Two different objective functions are considered in this re-
search, namely, they are the communication and control re-
lated and the power balance related. The communication and
control cost function to be minimized includes the cost of
installation of new control centers, which includes voltage and
frequency controller units; cost of network switches and routers
and the cost for length of communication media that can be
represented as
F1 = α × LoMC + β × N oRC + γ × N oZ
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gether; Pij _k and Qij _k are the real and reactive power flowing
between buses i and j at the generation-load state k; N is
the number of states for each year (4(seasons) × 90(days) ×
3456(states/day)); and ρk is the probability of the state, in
which the real and reactive powers are calculated. The power
balance objective function can be calculated by performing a
probabilistic power flow in the system. Since the two aspects
are to be considered simultaneously, the final objective function
(F ) can be represented as the weighted summation of F1 and
F2 , as shown in
M in(F ), F = K1 F1 + K2 F2 . (15)
Based on the definition of α, β, and γ, the dimension of F1
is costs in dollars, if we determine the cost of interruption due
to the supply inadequacy or power quality issues of microgrids
(which is out of the scope of this paper), then we can define
K2 as dollar per imbalance ratio. With such definitions the
objective function of the problem will be in dollars.
B. Optimization Constraints
There are two types of constraints for the optimization prob-
lem, communication related and power related. From a commu-
nication point of view, two constraints, i.e., network latency and
reliability, should be satisfied for the optimum infrastructure.
Although the network latency is not only a function of the
length of media and the number of routers in the system;
(12) however, these two indexes provide sufficient information for
 716
the design regarding the system’s latency. On the other hand,
since the power systems typically enjoy relatively low data rate
communications, other factors (e.g., performance loss, band-
width cost) can be safely ignored. It is noted that by assuming
a proper medium access control for low-rate communications,
the operational delay can have a negligible effect on the latency.
Therefore, the total system’s latency is calculated, as shown in
(16) [21]
T = TSerial + Tbetween.packet + Tpropagation + Trouting .
Tserial and Tbetween.packet are serial delay and between packet
delay, which are constant and Tpropagation and Trouting are
propagation delay and routing delay and are calculated, as
shown in (17); therefore, the total network latency will be
T = Constant + Tpropagation + Trouting
= Constant + LoMT /v + N oRT × Trouter
where v is the velocity at which the media is sent through
(close to speed of light), LoMT is the maximum length of
communication media from control center, N oRT is number
of routers seen from control center to the farthest node, and
Trouter is the router delay. For the optimum infrastructure, we
should have
T ≤ Tmax .
The second constraint is the threshold for the network relia-
bility. The communication reliability is function of number of
routers and length of media. Each node is in service only if all
the links and paths related to this node work properly; therefore,
the communication network’s reliability in each zone can be
formulated as
Rz = (Rrouter )N oRR × RLoMR
where Rrouter is the reliability of each router, RLoMR is the
reliability of total length of communication media from control
center to each node, and N oRR is the total number of routers in
the zone. Since the network reliability in each zone should be
higher than a threshold, the minimum calculated reliability for
each zone is considered as the reliability index (R). Here, also
for the optimum infrastructure, we should have
R ≥ Rmin .
From power distribution system point of view, one necessary
condition for an island to be successful is
PDG ≥ PLoad + PLoss
where PDG is the generated power of the DGs within the
microgrid, PLoad is the load power of the island, and PLoss
is the power losses of the island and assumed to be 5% of
the current load [33]. On the other hand, according to [34]
for an islanding operation of microgrid, the penetration level
of dispatchable DG units should be at least 60% of the total
peak load demand at the time of islanding. For this research,
it assumed that biomass DG units are dispatchable; therefore,
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 62, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015
the second necessary condition for a successful operation of the
microgrid is
PBM ≥ 0.6 × PDG (22)
where PBM is the generated power of biomass DGs in the mi-
crogrid. Equations (21) and (22) are two necessary conditions
for the successful operation of microgrids and can be satisfied
by shedding the loads according to their requested reliability.
(16) In this research, the load shedding starts from smaller loads to
larger ones until the conditions are satisfied. Moreover, some
other constraints should be satisfied to guarantee the security
of supply for the constructed microgrids. They are the voltage
magnitude (V ) and frequency (f ) limits on all system buses
in the microgrids, and maximum lines’ currents (I), which are
formulated as follows:
(17) Vmin ≤ Vi ≤ Vmax ∀i
fmin ≤ f ≤ fmax (23)
and for power line current limits
Ii ≤ Imax,i ∀i. (24)
The optimum microgrid design should satisfy these conditions
(18) in an islanded mode of operation. In Section VI, sensitivity
studies are conducted to assess the effects of changing the
coefficients on the optimum design.
V. S OLUTION A LGORITHMS
The formulated problem in Section IV is a comprehensive
problem with combinatorial nature and demands efficient solu-
(19) tion algorithms. This problem has two different objective func-
tions, which are aggregated into a single-objective function, by
using weighting coefficients. It is assumed that the weighting
coefficients such as K1 and K2 are predetermined based on
economic and system-related studies; therefore, the problem
can be seen as a single-objective optimization problem. Heuris-
tic optimization techniques are well-suited for such optimiza-
tion problems. In this paper, we have used three different
types of algorithms at different stages, including Tabu search
(TS) optimization algorithm, as the main optimization method,
(20) graph theory related techniques for suboptimization problems
and Newton–Raphson-based probabilistic power flow methods.
Several heuristic optimization techniques other than TS have
been proposed in literature for graph partitioning, which cope
(21) with the combinatorial nature of the present problem, such as
those mentioned in [27], [28]. Since the algorithm proposed by
the authors in this paper is effective and sufficient for solving
the defined problem, and the main contribution of this paper
is the new problem formulation that combines communication
and power balance aspects, other methods are not considered
in this research for splitting the network. The flowchart of
the algorithms is shown in Fig. 2. The optimization process
for selecting the optimum cut set lines are explained in the
following.
AREFIFAR et al.: CLUSTERING OF SYSTEMS CONSIDERING COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL REQUIREMENTS
Fig. 2. Flowchart of the algorithms used for the design.
A. Starting the Optimization Process
The optimization process starts with finding a feasible so-
lution as a starting point, searching within the neighbors and
continues until a certain criterion, which is usually the maxi-
mum iteration numbers, is reached. A feasible solution is an
infrastructure constructed through virtually cutting some power
lines in the network. Each feasible solution can be represented
by a vector (G), as shown in
G = [1 0 1 1 0 . . . . . . 1 0 1 1]
where the length of the vector is equal to the number of power
lines, which can be considered as cutting edges to construct the
zones. Each component of the G vector represents one physical
line. The number “1” and “0” for each component of G vector
represents an inside or between microgrids line, respectively.
The next step is to make a set of neighbors for the starting
point. A neighbor can be defined in many ways; here, we have
selected each neighbor by changing some components (e.g.,
five components) of the G from “0” to “1” or vice versa and
checking the feasibility of the resulted infrastructure in terms
of the constraints. The constraints should be satisfied for all
neighbors as explained in the next part.
717
i.e., latency and reliability. The latency-related constraints are
checked by calculating LoMT and N oRT . These values are
calculated by solving the minimum spanning tree (MST) [35]
and the shortest path [36] algorithms. By finding the MST
in each zone, the structure of the communication network is
determined. Afterward, the shortest path from each bus to the
other buses in the same microgrid is calculated. The bus that has
the shortest length of communication media to all other buses
is selected as the control center. After determining the control
center, the LoMT and N oRT can be calculated in each zone,
and the maximum values calculated for the zones will be used
to check the feasibility of infrastructure in terms of network
latency (less than 100 ms).
The reliability constraint is checked by calculating LoMR
and N oRR . Through the MST problem solved for the latency
constraint, these two parameters can be calculated for each
zone, and the minimum value for the zones will be used to
check the feasibility of the infrastructure in terms of network
reliability (more than 0.99). The power-related constraints can
be checked by performing power flow in the constructed micro-
grids. Each G vector represents a set of virtual cut set lines that
construct a microgrid structure. For a structure to be acceptable,
all the three constraints, voltage limits on all system buses in
the microgrids, system frequency, and power line current limits,
should be satisfied. The next step is to calculate the objective
function and select the best point among the neighbors.
C. Selection of the Best Point
The objective function includes two parts, i.e., F1 and F2 . F1
is determined as a weighted summation of LoMC , N oRC , and
N oZ, which are determined from solving the suboptimization
problem. F2 is related to the real and reactive power flowing
in each cut set line of the system and can be determined once
at the beginning through probabilistic power flow calculations
considering typical characteristics of DG units and loads in
active distribution systems. After calculating the objective func-
tion for all the points (G vectors) in the neighborhood, the
(25) best neighbor (vector) will be set as the new starting point and
the algorithm continues until reaching the maximum iteration
number. Finally, the optimum result is selected as the best point
(vector) of each set of neighbors.
D. Implementing Memory Structures
To avoid stopping over a local optimum, and to prevent
cycling around it, the Tabu List (TL) is introduced, which
prevents to visit the best solutions that have been visited in
previous moves or the moves that resulted in the optimum point
in previous regions. To construct the TL from the best recently
visited solutions, a unique quantity for each vector G is used,
which is calculated in

n
B. Checking the Optimization Constraints G(i) × 2i . (26)
i=1
As explained in Section IV-B, two types of constraints
should be satisfied, the communication related and power re- Furthermore, the TS algorithm uses different memory struc-
lated. The communication-related constraints include two parts, tures to avoid random search. In this paper, the short-term

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 718
Fig. 3. The 69-bus distribution system with DGs’ locations.
memory (STM) and the long-term memory (LTM), are imple-
mented. The STM memorizes the common features of subopti-
mal solutions for a number of iterations and tries to search for
the solutions with similar features in that region. The LTM is
used to diversify the search by jumping to new regions to find
the global optimum. This long-term memory will keep track of
the common features of all initial starting points in different
regions to avoid restarting from similar previously used starting
points. The two types of memories have been implemented by
using two different vectors with the same length as G.
In the next sections, the proposed algorithms have been
applied to a 69-bus distribution system. After several sensitivity
studies for the formulation and robustness of the algorithm, the
algorithm has been applied to a larger system, the IEEE 123-bus
distribution system, and the results are presented.
VI. I MPLEMENTATION AND S ENSITIVITY S TUDIES
The well-known PG&E 69-bus distribution system [37] is
selected as the test system for implementation of the algorithm
and sensitivity studies. The locations of DGs, DESRs, and
DRSs are arbitrary selected to be as shown in Fig. 3. The total
rated capacities of DG units are 250, 150, and 600 kW, for
wind turbines, PV modules and biomass DGs, respectively. The
total rated power of DESRs and DRSs are also 450 kW and
400 kVAr, respectively, in 25 kW/kVAr and 50 kW/kVAr units.
The location of reconfiguration switches are also shown in
Fig. 3 [38]. In the next sections, the optimum communication
and control infrastructure are designed for this system consider-
ing different objective functions. The goal or objective function
defined in this paper can represent real costs. The coefficients a,
b, α, β, γ, K1 , and K2 will be different for different distribution
systems depending on the economic conditions. How variation
of these coefficients affects the optimum design for communi-
cation and control infrastructure is investigated here.
For the sensitivity studies, the cost function for all cases is
normalized by using one of them as a reference (arbitrary) and
the rest is shown as percentages of this value. This will help
to have a more clear evaluation of the effect of varying the
coefficients on total costs.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 62, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015
TABLE I
V IRTUAL C UT S ETS C ONSIDERING P OWER R ELATED A SPECTS
A. Power Imbalance Related Objective Function Only
In this part, we only consider the power imbalance related
objective function. In other words, K1 = 0 & K2 = 1. Math-
ematically, the optimum result will occur when the system is
split into two virtual microgrids and the connecting power line
carries the minimum power. In order to have more feasible
values (more than two microgrids), another constraint is added,
at this stage only, which is on the number of zones to be more
than 5. For the rest of simulations in this paper, there is no limit
on the number of microgrids, and the optimum number will
be determined as a result of solving the optimization problem.
Table I shows the optimum virtual cut set lines to construct the
microgrids. In Table I, the cut set line j is the line between
bus j and j + 1, line jei is the ith branch starting from bus
j. The sensitivity studies at this stage, reveals that the system
partitioning results will be different based on selection of real
and reactive power indexes, or both, for minimizing the power
imbalance in the zones. For this table, the goal is normalized
using the case that has a = b = 0.5, and the rest is shown as
percentage values of this case.
B. Communication-Related Objective Function Only
In this part, we only consider the communication-related
objective function and its constraints to investigate the impact
of communication-related coefficients on the optimum design.
In other words, K1 = 1 & K2 = 0. The results of sensitivity
studies are shown in Table II, where α, β and γ represent the
cost of length of media, cost of a router, and cost of building
a control center, respectively. Since the cost of length of media
per kilometer and the cost of a communication router are in the
same range and very different from the cost of installation of
AREFIFAR et al.: CLUSTERING OF SYSTEMS CONSIDERING COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL REQUIREMENTS
TABLE II
V IRTUAL C UT S ETS C ONSIDERING C OMMUNICATION A SPECTS
TABLE III
O PTIMUM R ESULTS C ONSIDERING B OTH C OMMUNICATION AND
P OWER R ELATED A SPECTS
a new control center, α and β are assumed to be constant (0.5
each) and γ has been changed to see its effect on the optimum
communication and control infrastructure. It is seen that the
results are very dependent on γ. By changing it from 50 to 500,
the total infrastructure changes from 9 control zones to 3 control
zones. The value of γ varies for different systems and should
be set based on the cost of building the communication center
in each area, its maintenance, etc. For this table, the objective
function is normalized using the case that has α = β = 0.5 and
γ = 200.
C. Considering Both Objective Functions
Both power imbalance and communication cost-related ob-
jective functions are considered here. For this purpose, the al-
gorithm is applied under different circumstances with different
optimization coefficients, and the optimum communication and
control infrastructure are developed as presented in Table III.
For the sensitivity studies here, it is assumed that a and b
are equal to 0.5, and α, β, and γ are 0.5, 0.5, and 200,
respectively. Table III shows that depending on the importance
of communication related or power imbalance related aspects,
the optimum communication and control infrastructure will be
different. For Table III and the rest of tables in this paper,
the objective function is normalized using the case that has
a = b = α = β = 0.5, γ = 200, K1 = 0.7, and K2 = 0.3. As
explained before, the selection of these parameters for a refer-
ence case is arbitrary, and normalizing is done for having a more
clear comparison between the objective functions of different
cases. The goal in Table III has large variations for different
cases. The reason is that K1 and K2 , which are determined
based on circumstances of communication- and power-related
aspects of the problem, have significant impacts on the total
objective function. The optimum infrastructure for the case that
K1 and K2 are 0.7 and 0.3, respectively, is shown in Fig. 4.
The optimum infrastructure in this case, divides the system
into 5 zones with each having different controlled buses. As
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719
mentioned before, it is assumed that each bus in the system is
equipped with a controllable device such as distributed and re-
newable generation units, storage units, custom power devices,
electric vehicle charging stations, demand-side management
controllers, etc.
The sensitivity studies presented here reveals that the de-
signed communication and control infrastructure is dependent
on the optimization coefficients and for having an optimum
communication and control infrastructure, all the optimization
coefficients should be selected properly.
VII. R OBUSTNESS OF THE A LGORITHM
The research presented in this paper is related to the plan-
ning stage and the audiences of this paper are mostly util-
ities. From the utility point of view, a communication and
control infrastructure or any other long-term plan will be
acceptable if it is optimal or near optimal, in case of vari-
ation of system conditions, for the designated long-term pe-
riod. In this research, the sensitivity of the proposed design
to variation of some important characteristics of a distribu-
tion system that may change over time is investigated. These
characteristics include variation of loads, penetration level
of DGs on some or all system buses, adding new DGs to
random buses, and variation of system topology. How the
variation of each parameter will affect the optimum infras-
tructure and whether the planned infrastructure is still op-
timal or near optimal design are investigated here. For this
purpose, several case studies are presented; first, the effect of
changing the loads and generation levels, then the effect of ad-
ding DGs to some random buses, and finally the effect of system
reconfiguration on the optimum design is observed. For the
sensitivity studies here, any of the cases mentioned in Table III
can be used. As a sample case, here, it is assumed that a
and b are equal to 0.5, and α, β and γ are 0.5, 0.5, and 200
respectively, also K1 and K2 are 0.7 and 0.3, respectively.
A. Load and Generation Levels
The load level or consumers of electric power in the system
usually increases during a long period of time. The penetration
level of DG units in the system also varies during a long-
term operating period depending on several factors such as
economic, environmental, and weather conditions, based on
distribution system companies’ decision. This part examines
the effect of long-term variations in the load and generation on
the optimum design. For this purpose, three different scenarios
are investigated. First, it is assumed that the load and generation
rated powers are changed from 90% to 150% for all system
buses, and the results are shown in Table IV. In the second
scenario, only the loads on some buses of the system are
changed from 90% to 150% (even buses) and the rest of loads
and DGs penetration are kept constant. The results related to
this part are shown in Table V. Finally, the penetration levels
of DGs on some system buses (even buses) are changed from
90% to 150% and the rest of DGs generations and load levels
are kept constant, as shown in Table VI. The sensitivity studies
here show a little difference in the optimum infrastructure in
each case; however, from a communication and control point
 720
Fig. 4. Optimum communication and control infrastructure for 69-bus system.
TABLE IV
O PTIMUM V IRTUAL C UT S ETS IN C ASE OF VARIATION OF
L OAD AND G ENERATION L EVELS
TABLE V
O PTIMUM V IRTUAL C UT S ETS IN C ASE OF VARIATION OF
L OAD L EVELS ON E VEN B USES
of view, the optimum infrastructure is very similar. This means
that if for any reason the load or generation changed over a
long period of time for all or some of the system buses, the
designed infrastructure is still valid and close to optima in
terms of communications and power-related aspects. It is clear
that further increase in the load or penetration level of DGs
will affect the optimum design. In such cases, the optimum
communication and control infrastructure should be updated
accordingly.
B. Adding DGs to Random Buses of the System
During a long-term period, the total number of DGs may in-
crease in the system based on utilities’ or DG owners’ decision.
The impact of adding DGs to the system buses on the optimum
communication and control design is investigated here. For
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 62, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015
TABLE VI
O PTIMUM V IRTUAL C UT S ETS IN C ASE OF VARIATION OF
G ENERATION L EVELS ON E VEN B USES
TABLE VII
O PTIMUM V IRTUAL C UT S ETS W HEN A DDING DG S TO R ANDOM B USES
this purpose, it is assumed that different types of DG units,
including wind turbines, photovoltaic modules and biomass
generators are randomly added to some of the system buses,
and the optimum communication and control infrastructure is
designed and compared for the updated systems. The results
related to this part are shown in Table VII. In this table, the
total penetration level of DGs is increased from 0 to 350 kW in
25 kW steps. The second column, WSB, represents the number
of wind, solar and biomass DG units added to some random
buses of the system. For instance, WSB = 325 means three
units of 25 kW wind turbines, two units of 25 kW photovoltaic
module and five units of 25 kW biomass generators are added
to ten (3 + 2 + 5) random buses of the system. The sensitivity
studies here reveal that the optimum designed infrastructure
is similar in all cases. This means that adding up to 350 kW
new DGs to the system (%35 of existing DGs capacities) does
not have significant impact on the location of sectionalizing
AREFIFAR et al.: CLUSTERING OF SYSTEMS CONSIDERING COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL REQUIREMENTS
TABLE VIII
O PTIMUM V IRTUAL C UT S ETS IN C ASE OF VARIATION
OF S YSTEM C ONFIGURATION
switches or optimum communication and control infrastruc-
ture. It should be noted that adding more DGs to the system
may affect the optimum infrastructure, and in such cases, the
communication and control infrastructure should be modified
accordingly.
C. Distribution System Reconfiguration
The system configuration might change through operation of
sectionalizing switches. In such cases, whether the designed
communication-control infrastructure is still valid and close
to optima should be investigated. In Table VIII, the system
configuration is changed and the optimum infrastructure has
been designed for the system. “L-in” and “L-out” in the table
represent the connected and disconnected line, respectively.
Table VIII reveals that the optimum designed communication
and control infrastructures under different system topologies
are similar. This means that if for any reason the system
configuration changed over a period of time, the designed
infrastructure is still acceptable. Similarly, in this case, it is
clear that major topological changes in the system configuration
may affect the optimum design, and in such cases, the optimum
communication and control infrastructure should be updated
accordingly.
VIII. L ARGE S YSTEM A PPLICATIONS
The proposed algorithm was tested on the adopted IEEE
123-bus distribution system and the results are presented here.
For this system also, the locations of DGs, DESRs, and DRSs
are arbitrary selected to be as shown in Fig. 5. The total
rated capacities of DG units are 350, 250, and 800 kW, for
wind turbines, PV modules and biomass DGs, respectively. The
total rated power of DESRs and DRSs are also 800 kW and
700 kVAr, respectively, 50 kW/kVAr units. The locations of
DGs in the system are shown in Fig. 5. In order to design
the optimum communication and control infrastructure for the
123-bus distribution system, the optimization parameters are
selected the same as in Section VII. The processing time
for 1000 iterations on an Intel Core2 Duo with CPU
E7500@2.93GHz for 69-bus system was 24 min and 46 s and
for the 123-bus was 38 min and 53 s. Since this is a planning
not operation problem, there is no limitation for the processing
time; therefore, to get higher quality results, we can increase the
number of neighborhood and iterations in the TS algorithm. The
optimum communication and control infrastructure designed
for this system is shown in Fig. 5. The 123-bus distribution
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721
Fig. 5. Optimum design for IEEE 123-bus distribution system.
system is split into 7 virtual zones. In each zone, there are some
DGs, DESRs and DRSs. Through the optimum design, every
zone has minimum real and reactive power imbalance between
generation and load; therefore, the DGs will be able to feed
the zones with minimum load shedding actions or even may
be able to feed the loads in the zone during light-load periods.
The total cost of communication and control infrastructure is
also minimized while maintaining the acceptable reliability and
latency of the communication network. With such design for
the communication and control infrastructure, each zone has its
own control center. Having a control center and communication
network, with acceptable reliability and latency in each zone,
will ease the operation and control of generation and loads
such as controlling the DGs’ output powers, load shedding and
performing demand-side energy management. Furthermore, in
case of faults, with the minimal self-healing actions, such as
load shedding in the zones, the maximum number of loads can
still get their service from utility.
IX. C ONCLUSION
This paper has presented a strategy for designing a com-
munication and control infrastructure in a distribution system
based on the virtual microgrid concept. The new design takes
into account both communication and power-related objective
functions. In the optimum infrastructure, the total costs related
to building communication and control infrastructure should be
minimized while maintaining the acceptable network latency
and reliability. On the other hand, the optimum partitioning
scenario in case of emergency is the one with minimum power
imbalance in each zone. This will ease the control strategy in
each island and protects other healthy areas of the network
from the disturbances as a self-healing action in a distribution
system. The sensitivity studies show that the optimum infras-
tructure depends on these coefficients, which differ for different
systems. The robustness of the infrastructure to the variation
of loads and DG penetration levels, adding new DGs to the
system, and system reconfiguration is investigated. The results
show that the final design is not very sensitive to the DG and
 722 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 62, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015
load level, adding new DGs and to the system topology. The
algorithms are then applied for the IEEE 123-bus distribution
system and the results are presented. By considering two dif-
ferent concerns of distribution system engineers, the proposed
novel strategy for designing the optimum communication and
control infrastructure is a major step toward having a more
intelligent and cost efficient smart grid.
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Seyed Ali Arefifar (S’06–M’10) was born in
Isfahan, Iran. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc.
degrees (with honors) in electrical engineering,
power systems, from Isfahan University of Tech-
nology, Isfahan, in 2001 and 2004, respectively,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB,
Canada, in 2010.
From 2011 to 2014, he was a Natural Sci-
ences and Engineering Research Council of
Canada Visiting Fellow with CanmetENERGY,
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), and the visiting Postdoctoral
Program with the University of Alberta. He is currently with the University
of Alberta as a Research Associate. His research interests include
optimization in planning and operation of smart grids, load modeling,
and power quality.
AREFIFAR et al.: CLUSTERING OF SYSTEMS CONSIDERING COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL REQUIREMENTS
Yasser Abdel-Rady I. Mohamed (M’06–SM’11)
was born in Cairo, Egypt, on November 25,
1977. He received the B.Sc. (with honors) and
M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from
Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, in 2000
and 2004, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from the University of
Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 2008.
He is currently with the Department of Elec-
trical and Computer Engineering, University of
Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, as an Asso-
ciate Professor. His research interests include dynamics and control
of power converters; distributed and renewable generation, and micro-
grids; modeling, analysis, and control of smart grids; electric machines;
and motor drives.
Dr. Mohamed is an Associate Editor of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS
ON I NDUSTRIAL E LECTRONICS . He is also a Guest Editor of the IEEE
T RANSACTIONS ON I NDUSTRIAL E LECTRONICS Special Section on “Dis-
tributed Generation and Microgrids.” His biography is listed in Marque’s
Who’s Who in the World. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in
the Province of Alberta, Canada.
Authorized licensed use limited to: University of Petroleum & Energy Studies. Downloaded on February 25,2020 at 12:45:05 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
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Tarek El-Fouly received the B.Sc. and
M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from
Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, in 1996
and 2002, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from the University of
Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 2008.
He joined CanmetENERGY, Natural Re-
sources Canada, Varennes, QC, Canada, in
2008, as a Transmission and Distribution Re-
search Engineer, where he is conducting and
managing research activities related to active
distribution networks, microgrids, and remote communities. In 2010,
he was appointed as Adjunct Assistant Professor with the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo. His
research interests include protection and coordination studies, integra-
tion of renewable energy resources, smart microgrid, smart remote
community applications, demand-side management, and forecasting.