Optimal sizing of small isolated hybrid power systems using tabu search

Abstract

The optimal sizing problem of a small isolated power system that contains renewable and/or conventional energy technologies belongs to the field of combinatorial optimization. Due to the large number of available technologies and their wide range of possible technical characteristics, the solution of this problem following the traditional method of exhaustive enumeration can be extremely time-consuming. In this paper, a tabu search algorithm is proposed for the solution of the above optimal sizing problem. Tabu search is an iterative metaheuristic method that has been successfully applied mainly in combinatorial optimization problems. The results prove the performance of the proposed method in terms of solution quality and computation time.