Hybrid Renewable Energy Microgrids with Battery Storage Optimization for Island Communities

Abstract

Geographical isolation, inaccessibility of grids, and dependence on outside fossil fuels (and especially diesel) are other factors that often present considerable energy issues to the island communities. This reliance contributes to the high costs of energy, insecurity of supply, and high emissions of greenhouse gases. The sustainable solution to these problems is hybrid renewable energy microgrids that combine solar photovoltaic and wind energy systems, battery storage, and backup diesel generators. Nevertheless, a smaller-than-optimal battery size and dispatch may decrease the efficiency of the system, raise costs, and diminish reliability. This paper suggests an efficient hybrid microgrid architecture specific to the communities on islands, with particular attention to battery storage size and capacity to improve economic, technical, and environmental performance. An overall model of a microgrid is created, which includes solar and wind power generation, battery charge/discharge dynamics, load distribution profiles, and cost functions, which contain capital, operating, and maintenance costs. The optimization problem has been developed based on a Genetic Algorithm so that the total system cost is minimized while maintaining high reliability under the restriction of battery state-of-charge, the limits of the diesel generator, and the availability of renewable energy. The representative island community with hourly load and renewable resource data in the form of a one-year simulation is simulated. The findings show an optimal battery capacity of 1,200 kWh, and the result will be a renewable penetration of 74 %, a cost reduction to the total system by 28 %, and the levelized cost of energy reduced to 0.32 US dollars per kilowatt-hour. The reliability measures are enhanced by substantial values, the probability of loss of power supply and untaken load is lowered to 0.8 % and 0.9 %, respectively, and the diesel operation span is lowered by 64 %. These results prove that the battery storage optimization type will lead to a high-level renewable integration, a decrease in dependency on diesel, and the availability of a reliable and cost-effective power supply for isolated communities. The offered framework offers a feasible and scalable solution to the sustainability of the electrification of island microgrids.