Optimal sizing for microgrids integrating distributed flexibility with the Perth West smart city as a case study

Chaimaa Essayeh, Thomas Morstyn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

With the decreasing cost of green technologies and the increasing ambitions to reach the net-zero carbon emissions target, more communities are engaged in renewable deployment and energy-intensive technologies such as heat pumps and electric vehicles will be intensively adopted in the near future. The integration of these appliances in lower grid levels will likely require grid reinforcements. However, some of these appliances are flexible and there is an opportunity to explore their flexibility potential to optimise the investment costs further. This paper proposes an optimal design strategy for a grid-connected site that returns the renewable generation and storage’s optimal sizing capacities and the required network reinforcement capacity. The novelty of the work is integrating network upgrade costs and considering flexibility from distributed flexible resources across planning and operation. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer piecewise linear problem, with the capacities of generation, storage and network upgrade as decision variables. The piecewise linear cost function related to the upgrade costs figuring in the objective function is then recast as a mixed-integer problem, and the flexible resources are modelled through an approximation method as a single virtual flexible asset. The application of the strategy on the Perth West smart city project as a case study demonstrates the importance of considering flexibility in the planning phase. The costs related to the storage system can decrease by up to 76%, and the overall costs by up to 35%, with the highest levels of savings, reached for the highest rates of electric vehicle adoption.
Original languageEnglish
Article number120846
JournalApplied Energy
Volume336
Early online date17 Feb 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Apr 2023

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • optimal sizing
  • Microgrids (MGs)
  • Electric Vehicle (EV)
  • Flexible devices
  • grid reinforcement
  • Battery energy storage system (BESS)

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