Compromise Between Cost and Reliability In Optimum Design of An Autonomous Hybrid Power System Using Mixed-Integer PSO Algorithm

For some isolated or remote regions, distributed generation is normally built instead of connecting to central generation system. With the rapid development of alternative energy technologies, such an autonomous power generating system may be made up of several renewable energy resources. Different energy resources have different characteristics in terms of operational costs and reliability impact. Optimum resource management in a hybrid generation system is crucial to achieve acceptable cost and reliability level. These design objectives are usually conflicting with one another and thus a reasonable tradeoff between them is desirable. In this paper, the optimum design of an autonomous hybrid generating system including different power sources such as wind turbine generators, photovoltaics, and storage batteries is presented. Considering the complexity of the problem, we propose a constrained mixed-integer multi-objective particle swarm optimization (CMIMOPSO) algorithm to derive non-dominated solutions for the optimum design. A numerical example is also used to illustrate the design problem itself as well as to verify the effectiveness of the developed optimization procedure.