Battery Sizing Method for Microgrids—A Colombian Application Case

Abstract

The introduction of renewable energy sources in microgrids increases energy reliability, especially in small communities that operate disconnected from the main power grid. A battery energy storage system (BESS) plays an important role in microgrids because it helps mitigate the problems caused by the variability of renewable energy sources, such as unattended demand and voltage instability. However, a BESS increases the cost of a microgrid due to the initial investment and maintenance, requiring a cost–benefit analysis to determine its size for each application. This paper addresses this problem by formulating a method that combines economic and technical approaches to provide favorable relations between costs and performances. Mixed integer linear programming (MILP) is used as optimization algorithm to size BESS, which is applied to an isolated community in Colombia located at Isla Múcura. The results indicate that the optimal BESS requires a maximum power of 17.6 kW and a capacity of 76.61 kWh, which is significantly smaller than the existing 480 kWh system. Thus, a reduction of 83.33% in the number of batteries is obtained. This optimized size reduces operational costs while maintaining technical reliability. The proposed method aims to solve an important problem concerning state policy and the universalization of electrical services, providing more opportunities to decision makers in minimizing the costs and efforts in the implementation of energy storage systems for isolated microgrids.