A decision support system for planning and coordination of hybrid renewable energy systems

Due to the growing concern about climate change and environmental sustainability, hybrid renewable energy system (HRES), which refers to a system that combines several renewable power sources and a conventional power generator to cover the power shortage when the renewable power is insufficient, has gained more and more popularity over the decades. While the HRES is very attractive due to the minimal environmental and health impact compared to fossil fuels, the planning and coordination of HRES so as to supply stable power in a cost effective way are very challenging. This is mainly due to the unknown power demand, the highly volatile amount of renewable power supply and the complex topology of power network. In this paper, we model the planning and coordination of HRES in uncertain environments and develop an efficient heuristic to solve the model. A decision support system(DSS) integrating the proposed model and the heuristic is developed as an efficient decision tool to enable effective and efficient energy management of HRES. The visualized outputs of DSS allow decision makers to gain better understanding about the management of HRES, facilitating the decision making process. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.