Abstract

The development of microgrids has enabled prosumers to develop optimal power management and demand response (DR) strategies. Based on this idea, virtual prosumers and microgrids can be created in a traditional city structure, exploiting microgrids’ ability to operate connected or disconnected to the grid. Therefore, the development of more complex energy control and management systems becomes necessary. In this thesis, an easy to apply and computationally efficient energy management system (EMS) has been developed in Matlab. It is based on a hierarchical multi-agent system aiming to minimize the operating cost of a microgrid, that consists of a group of buildings, renewable energy sources (RES), energy storage systems (ESS) and electric vehicles (EVs). The examined optimization problem is solved using the particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO), that ensures the optimum use of every microgrid’s component. Based on the results obtained by applying the algorithm to the operation of the microgrid, both in the time frame of one day and one week, cost savings of 40% can be achieved while all the microgrid’s energy needs and operation constraints are met.

Abstract

The operation model of a virtual power plant (VPP) that includes synchronous distributed generating units, combined heat and power unit, renewable sources, small pumped and thermal storage elements, and electric vehicles is described in the present research. The VPPs are involved in the day-ahead energy and regulation reserve market so that escalate their profit by selling their generated power. This is formulated as an optimization problem with maximization of VPPs profit subject to constraints of the VPP’s sources and storage, and VPP flexibility limits. Also, uncertain nature of renewables output power, prices of the markets, electric vehicles parameters, and reserve parameters are taken into account. Then, uncertain parameters are properly modeled by incorporating the Unscented transformation (UT)-based stochastic optimization, and GAMS software is adopted to test the efficacy of the presented approach so that the VPP’s operation and economic situation is suitably improved.

Abstract

Abstract