Optimal planning of stand-alone microgrids incorporating reliability

This paper proposes a new method for the planning of stand-alone microgrids. By means of clustering techniques, possible operating scenarios are obtained considering the daily patterns of wind and load profiles. Then, an approximate analytical model for reliability evaluation of battery energy storage system is developed in terms of the diverse scenarios, along with multistate models for wind energy system and diesel generating system. An optimal planning model is further illustrated based on the scenarios and the reliability models, with the objective of minimizing the present values of the costs occurring within the project lifetime, and with the constraints of system operation and reliability. Finally, a typical stand-alone microgrid is studied to verify the efficiency of the proposed method.