Sizing of battery energy storage system for sustainable energy in a remote area

This paper proposes a method for sizing power capacity of the battery energy storage system (BESS) in order to improve power system reliability of a remote area with self-sustainable energy. Microgrid operation is designed to optimally utilize local generations by minimizing tie-line flow from the main grid. The formulated optimization problem can be conveniently solved using linear programming technique. Then, the size of BESS is determined from the obtained tie-line flow profile. Mae Hong Son city, located in the remote north-western part of Thailand and surrounded by dense forests, is chosen as a test system in this study due to the fact that the city has a long and winding tie-line with high chance of fault occurrences all year long. Test results also reveal insights of the required local generation dispatch. The proposed method can be applied to other similar areas.