Multi agent system: concepts, platforms and applications in power systems

The power system is presently experiencing vital changes: it is advancing from a centralized structure to a decentralized one, primarily because of the enormous advancement of distributed renewable energy sources, so future power system obliges new control strategies. These systems must have the capacity to withstand new requirements, for example, the exceedingly disseminated nature, the irregularity of renewable energy sources and the restricted data transfer capacity for communications. Multi agent systems (MAS) have attributes that meet these prerequisites. A certain degree of distributed or collective intelligence can be accomplished through the connection of these agents with one another, participating or contending to achieve their objectives. This paper introduces outline of the fundamental ideas of MAS and its different platforms. Also, it provides a comprehensive survey on the power system applications in which MAS technique has been applied. For each power system application, technical details are also discussed.