Development of a Heuristic Algorithm to Design Stand-Alone Microgrids for Rural Electrification Projects Considering Distributed Generation

Development of a Heuristic Algorithm to Design Stand-Alone Microgrids for Rural Electrification Projects Considering Distributed Generation

Presenter: Fredy Ernesto Canizares, Oriol Gomis-Bellmunt, Matteo Ranaboldo and Hannes Kirchhoff

Presentation

Electricity supply in rural areas by means of renewable energy based microgrids has been advocated as a sustainable solution to increase the access to electricity in developing countries. Due to the challenges linked to their design, several tools are available to facilitate their planning stage. Even though widely used tools have been successfully utilized in multiple electrification projects, they do not design the electrical network of the microgrid and do not consider multiple generation points. A proper design of these aspects could greatly contribute to the sustainability of the project and to keep an adequate electrical behavior of the microgrid. For this reason, this study presents a heuristic algorithm to design solar energy- based microgrids, considering distributed generation. The algorithm is capable of designing both the electrical network and multiple generation points. Moreover, the algorithm is validated by comparing its results to different scenarios, based on standard design approaches.

References

Fredy Ernesto Canizares, Oriol Gomis-Bellmunt, Matteo Ranaboldo and Hannes Kirchhoff: Micro Perspective for Decentralized Energy (MES) 2015, Bangalore, India.