Day ahead schedule of remote microgrids with renewable energy sources considering battery lifetime

Remote microgrids are a viable option for electrification where the main grid expansion is either impossible or not economical. Typically, remote microgrid consists of diesel generator as a primary source of energy which has a high fuel cost. Renewable energy sources can be used to reduce the fuel consumption with proper coordination and scheduling methods. Storage devices, usually battery, used in remote microgrid are expensive and toxic in nature; therefore battery lifetime is another important parameter to be considered during microgrid scheduling. In this paper, four test cases were developed for the study of fuel consumption. Problems were formulated as mixed integer programming (MIP) and solved using GAMS/CPLEX 12.6 solver. Furthermore, the battery lifetime model was included in the optimization model and fuel consumption was compared with other cases. Results show the slight increment in fuel consumption when the battery lifetime model was included.