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Microgrids help to achieve power balance and energy allocation optimality for the defined load networks. One of the major challenges associated with microgrids is the design and implementation of a suitable communication-control architecture that can coordinate actions with system operating conditions. In this paper, the focus is to enhance the intelligence of microgrid networks using a multi-agent system while validation is carried out using network performance metrics i.e., delay, throughput, jitter, and queuing. Network performance is analyzed for the small, medium and large scale microgrid using Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) test systems. In this paper, multi-agent-based Bellman routing (MABR) is proposed where the Bellman–Ford algorithm serves the system operating conditions to command the actions of multiple agents installed over the overlay microgrid network. The proposed agent-based routing focuses on calculating the shortest path to a given destination to improve network quality and communication reliability. The algorithm is defined for the distributed nature of the microgrid for an ideal communication network and for two cases of fault injected to the network. From this model, up to 35%–43.3% improvement was achieved in the network delay performance based on the Constant Bit Rate (CBR) traffic model for microgrids.

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In a modest electrical energy sector, an economical unit cost of electricity generation is inevitable. For tropical countries like Malaysia, apart from attractive energy cost, the environmental issues due to electricity sector also play a significant role because of its tropical nature. The energy cost and its related environmental concerns are of the momentous issues of the Malaysian Government. So as to resolve the concerned issues, this research presents a direct generation scheduling strategy to match demand against power generation, to augment opportunity for energy sustainability, and to offer an attractive unit electric energy cost. Besides, the same strategy aims at minimizing emissions due to thermal power plants through generation scheduling and incorporation of renewable energy systems.

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Though Malaysia is blessed with a lot of natural resources, still it mainly depends on fossil-fuels for electricity generation. Due to this dependency, among the different polluting agencies, the electric power sector ranks second in the country's statistics. So as to reduce the pollution from them and to reduce the dependency on the depleting fossil-fuels, Malaysia is very keen on promoting renewable energy based electricity generation. Following the Government's renewable energy policy and subsidies, several renewable energy attempts were made and only the solar PV energy systems have had a good start; however, the continued development from the start is questionable because of the high capital cost involved and the unattractive energy conversion efficiency. Few attempts on the proven, cost-effective wind energy systems were carried out and the net outcome is not encouraging due to the low-speed scenario in Malaysia. As per a few successful studies on wind speed assessments, there are attractive sites for wind turbine based electricity generation not with high speed higher capacity turbines, but at low speed small capacity wind turbines. To promote wind energy in Malaysia and to attract global investors, this research aims at low capacity wind turbines suitable for low wind regimes as in the Malaysian context. The proposed constant speed-small horizontal axis wind turbines exhibited encouraging values of annual energy production, power coefficient and capacity factors promising a successful start of wind energy in Malaysia.

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