Optimal sizing for stand alone power generating system with wind-PV-hydro storage by mixed-integer linear programming

Abstract

This paper proposes an algorithm to optimally design a stand alone power generating system consisting of wind, PV and pumped-hydro storage systems. The characteristics of three renewable power generating systems are modeled in mathematical formulation along with its objective function to formulate a set of optimization problem. Since the state variables include integers, the mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) is an effective method to be applied to the problem. The algorithm is tested on a case study with an annual load profile that is averaged from residential and medium service customers, along with statistical data of wind and solar energy from Thailand. The MILP can obtain the complete set of optimal solutions with a single computational process. The optimal results include the number of wind turbines, the number of PV units, the volume of the upper reservoir, the rated capacity of pump motor and hydro turbine for the hydro storage system.