Economic Controls Co-Design of Hybrid Microgrids with Tidal/PV Generation and Lithium-Ion/Flow Battery Storage

Jonathan Cohen, Michael B. Kane (), Alexia Marriott, Franklin Ollivierre and Krissy Govertsen
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Jonathan Cohen: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Michael B. Kane: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Alexia Marriott: Department of Human Genetics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
Franklin Ollivierre: Department of Human Genetics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA
Krissy Govertsen: Department of Human Genetics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: Due to the uncontrollable generators, islanded microgrids powered only by renewable energy require costly energy storage systems. Energy storage needs are amplified when load and generation are misaligned on hourly, monthly, or seasonal timescales. Diversification of both loads and generation can smooth out such mismatches. However, the ideal type of battery to smooth out remaining generation deficits will depend on the duration(s) that energy is stored. This study presents a controls co-design approach to design an islanded microgrid, showing the benefit of hybridizing tidal and solar generation and hybridizing lithium-ion and flow battery energy storage. The optimization of the microgrid’s levelized cost of energy is initially studied in grid-search slices to understand convexity and smoothness. Then, a particle swarm optimization is proposed and used to study the sensitivity of the hybrid system configuration to variations in component costs. The study highlights the benefits of controls co-design, the need to model premature battery failure, and the importance of using battery cost models that are applicable across orders of magnitude variations in energy storage durations. The results indicate that such a hybrid microgrid would currently produce energy at five times the cost of diesel generation, but flow battery innovations could bring this closer to only twice the cost while using 100% renewable energy.

Keywords: hybrid microgrids; optimization; renewable energy sources; tidal energy; solar energy; energy storage systems; lithium-ion batteries; vanadium redox flow batteries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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