On sizing of standalone hybrid wind/solar/battery micro-grid system

Abstract

Capacity optimization of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind and the optimal sizing of associated battery energy storage (BES) is essential for economic and reliable operation of a standalone micro-grid (MG). In this work a constraint based iterative search algorithm is proposed to find the optimal sizes of solar, wind and battery capacity in a standalone MG. The proposed method is based on two basic principles, i.e., maximum reliability and minimum cost. The proposed technique is robust and guarantees to avoid the over and under sizing. In addition it considers the forced outage rates (FORs) of solar and wind and utilization factor of battery storage which makes it more practical. Renewables and demand data of Dammam region of KSA is used to test the proposed method. A reliability and economic analysis is also carried out to validate the proposed technique.