Optimal power scheduling of a renewable microgrid system using a meta-heuristic method

Techno-economic design of production units is a significant problem in power systems management. In all the power systems, it is an essential case to maintain the balance between load and generated power. This may be done by optimal power scheduling containing multivariate and several constraints through linear programming methods. It is necessary that power generation should equalize to power consumption in a typical microgrid systems in order to obtain minimum operation cost and this may make microgrid system more attractive. To achieve this balance in very small time intervals may be possible by a solution of a complex optimization problem, however deterministic methods are incapable of doing that. Therefore, use of a meta-heuristic technic may be one alternative to solve this type of minimization problem. The objective of this study is to find minimum operation cost in a microgrid system composed of low power wind turbines, solar panels and a diesel generator through optimal power scheduling by the genetic algorithms. The results have shown that the operation cost of microgrid system is significantly minimized compared to unscheduled power demand.