Optimal design of synergistic distributed renewable fuel and power systems

Andrew Allman and Prodromos Daoutidis

Renewable Energy, 2017, vol. 100, issue C, 78-89

Abstract: The concepts of the biorefinery and microgrid have emerged as ways to increase the sustainability of the energy infrastructure. Although typically considered as separate systems, synergies exist between the biorefinery and the microgrid, suggesting that a combined system could be more efficient than the individual systems. This paper explores this hypothesis by comparing the optimal designs and costs of the individual, and the combined biorefinery and microgrid systems. A novel design optimization problem considering synergistic operation of the biorefinery and microgrid is presented. A solution method to this problem is developed that exploits the separable nature of the optimization of such a ”system of systems.” Base case results show that the combined system costs are higher than those of the individual systems. However, by implementing a hydrogen recycle, significant savings are seen in the combined system, highlighting a direct advantage of system synergy. The effects of energy autonomy on the system are also analyzed and discussed. The overall analysis shows that the synergies between the biorefinery and microgrid can be exploited to create an energy system that is less costly and more efficient than the sum of its constituent parts.

Keywords: Renewable energy; Optimization; Microgrid; Biorefinery; Distributed energy systems; System of systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014811630235X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:100:y:2017:i:c:p:78-89

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2016.03.051

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().