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Following a rise in population, load demand is increasing even in the remote areas and islands of Bangladesh. Being an island that is also far from the mainland of Bangladesh, St. Martin’s is in need of electricity. As it has ample renewable energy resources, a renewable energy-based microgrid system seems to be the ultimate solution, considering the ever-increasing price of diesel fuel. This study proposes a microgrid system and tests its technical and economic feasibility in that area. All possible configurations have been simulated to try and find the optimal system for the island, which would be eco-friendly and economical with and without considering renewable energy options. The existing power supply configuration has also been compared to the best system after analyzing and investigating all technical and economic feasibility. Sensitivity and risk analysis between different cases provide added value to this study. The results show that the current diesel-based system is not viable for the island’s people, but rather a heavy burden to them due to the high cost of per unit electricity and the net present cost. In contrast, a PV /Wind/Diesel/Battery hybrid microgrid appeared to be the most feasible system. The proposed system is found to be around 1.5 times and 28% inexpensive considering the net present cost and cost of energy, respectively, with a high (56%) share of renewable energy which reduces 23% carbon dioxide.

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Combating climate change issues resulting from excessive use of fossil fuels comes with huge initial costs, thereby posing difficult challenges for the least developed countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to invest in renewable energy alternatives, especially with rapid industrialization. However, designing renewable energy systems usually hinges on different economic and environmental criteria. This paper used the Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) technique to optimally size ten grid-connected hybrid blocks selected amongst Photo-Voltaic (PV) panels, onshore wind turbines, biomass combustion plant using sugarcane bagasse, Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), and Diesel Generation (DG) system as backup power, to reduce the supply deficit in Sierra Leone. Resource assessment using well-known methods was done for PV, wind, and biomass for proposed plant sites in Kabala District in Northern and Kenema District in Southern Sierra Leone. Long term analysis was done for the ten hybrid blocks projected over 20 years whilst ensuring the following objectives: minimizing the Deficiency of Power Supply Probability (DPSP), Diesel Energy Fraction (DEF), Life Cycle Costs (LCC), and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. Capacity factors of 27.41 % and 31.6 % obtained for PV and wind, respectively, indicate that Kabala district is the most feasible location for PV and wind farm installations. The optimum results obtained are compared across selected blocks for DPSP values of 0–50% to determine the most economical and environmentally friendly alternative that policy makers in Sierra Leone and the region could apply to similar cases.

a b s t r a c tThis paper deals with an optimal battery energy storage capacity for the smart grid operation. Distributed renewable generator and conventional thermal generator are considered as the power generation sources for the smart grid. Usually, a battery energy storage system (BESS) is used to satisfy the transmission constraints but installation cost of battery energy storage is very high. Sometimes, it is not possible to install a large capacity of the BESS. On the other hand, the competition of the electricity market has been increased due to the deregulation and liberalization of the power market. Therefore, the power companies are required to reduce the generation cost in order to maximize the profit. In this paper, a thermal units commitment program considers the demand response system to satisfy the transmission constraints. The BESS capacity can be reduced by the demand response system. The electric vehicle (EV) and heat pump (HP) in the smart house are considered as the controllable loads of the demand side. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated by extensive simulation results which ensure the reduction of BESS capacity and power generation cost, and satisfy the transmission constraints.

Energy storage systems (ESSs) are essential to ensure continuity of energy supply and maintain the reliability of modern power systems. Intermittency and uncertainty of renewable generations due to fluctuating weather conditions as well as uncertain behavior of load demand make ESSs an integral part of power system flexibility management. Typically, the load demand profile can be categorized into peak and off-peak periods, and adding power from renewable generations makes the load-generation dynamics more complicated. Therefore, the thermal generation (TG) units need to be turned on and off more frequently to meet the system load demand. In view of this, several research efforts have been directed towards analyzing the benefits of ESSs in solving optimal unit commitment (UC) problems, minimizing operating costs, and maximizing profits while ensuring supply reliability. In this paper, some recent research works and relevant UC models incorporating ESSs towards solving the abovementioned power system operational issues are reviewed and summarized to give prospective researchers a clear concept and tip-off on finding efficient solutions for future power system flexibility management. Conclusively, an example problem is simulated for the visualization of the formulation of UC problems with ESSs and solutions.

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