Efficient Networked Microgrid Management Considering Plug-in Electric Vehicles and Storage Units

This article addresses the optimal energy management and operation of networked microgrids considering different types of dispatchable units like fuelcell and microturbine and non-dispatchable units such as wind turbine and solar units. To change the just-consuming role of vehicles into an active role with the ability to make a profit, the vehicle-to-grid technology (V2G) is deployed here. Due to the complex and nonlinear structure of the problem, an effective optimization energy management framework based on the bat algorithm (with a modification) and unscented transform is devised to find the most optimal operation point of the devices from the economic point of view. Due to the high uncertainties injected by electric vehicles pattern behavior in addition to the renewable sources output power variations, the unscented transform is proposed to make the analysis more realistic. The simulation results on an IEEE networked microgrid test system advocate the high capability and proper performance of the proposed method. The results show that the total system operation cost is 53897.004$ and 53711.704$ in the 1st and 2nd scenarios, respectively. Moreover, it is seen that considering uncertainty in the problem has added 0.586% and 0.762% to the cost function value in the first and second scenarios, compared to the deterministic framework.