Demand Response Potentials for the Economic Deployment of Multi-Carrier Microgrids

Multi-carrier microgrids integrated by multiple energies can provide high energy supply flexibility for not only electrical end-users but thermal or gas consumers. Thus, this paper inspects the technical and economic viability of multi-carrier microgrid expansions and helps investors decide whether to invest in multi-carrier microgrid installations. The proposed model's solution determines the optimal mixture of distributed energy resources and identifies potential customers' ideal demand response intensity within a real-life industrial multi-carrier microgrid. The developed model aims at minimizing the total planning cost comprising distributed energy resources' investment and replacement, demand response enabling technology, operation, maintenance, energy demand shifting, peak demand charge, CO2e emission, and load curtailment. The design problem is formulated as mixed-integer programming and solved by GAMS 24.1. Numerical simulations reveal the proposed model's efficacy and investigate the impact of various factors on multi-carrier microgrid planning results.