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Article
Deep Reinforcement Learning for Energy Management in a Microgrid with Flexible Demand
This version is not peer-reviewed.
Submitted:
06 October 2020
Posted:
07 October 2020
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Abstract
In this paper, we study the performance of various deep reinforcement learning algorithms to enhance the energy management system of a microgrid. We propose a novel microgrid model that consists of a wind turbine generator, an energy storage system, a set of thermostatically controlled loads, a set of price-responsive loads, and a connection to the main grid. The proposed energy management system is designed to coordinate among the different flexible sources by defining the priority resources, direct demand control signals, and electricity prices. Seven deep reinforcement learning algorithms were implemented and are empirically compared in this paper. The numerical results show that the deep reinforcement learning algorithms differ widely in their ability to converge to optimal policies. By adding an experience replay and a semi-deterministic training phase to the well-known asynchronous advantage actor-critic algorithm, we achieved the highest model performance as well as convergence to near-optimal policies.
Keywords:
Artificial intelligence
; Deep reinforcement learning
; Demand Response
; Dynamic pricing
; Energy management system
; Microgrid
; Neural networks
; Price-responsive loads
; Smart grid
; Thermostatically controlled loads
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
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