Community Resilience-Oriented Optimal Micro-Grid Capacity Expansion Planning: The Case of Totarabank Eco-Village, New Zealand

Abstract

In the grid-tied micro-grid context, energy resilience can be defined as the time period that a local energy system can supply the critical loads during an unplanned upstream grid outage. While the role of renewable-based micro-grids in enhancing communities’ energy resilience is well-appreciated, the academic literature on the techno-economic optimisation of community-scale micro-grids lacks a quantitative decision support analysis concerning the inclusion of a minimum resilience constraint in the optimisation process. Utilising a specifically-developed, time-based resilience capacity characterisation method to quantify the sustainability of micro-grids in the face of different levels of extended grid power outages, this paper facilitates stakeholder decision-making on the trade-off between the whole-life cost of a community micro-grid system and its degree of resilience. Furthermore, this paper focuses on energy infrastructure expansion planning, aiming to analyse the importance of micro-grid reinforcement to meet new sources of electricity demand—particularly, transport electrification—in addition to the business-as-usual demand growth. Using quantitative case study evidence from the Totarabank Subdivision in New Zealand, the paper concludes that at the current feed-in-tariff rate (NZ$0.08/kWh), the life cycle profitability of resilience-oriented community micro-grid capacity reinforcement is guaranteed within a New Zealand context, though constrained by capital requirements.

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“…The power of the WPP depends on the wind speed, which varies greatly with time, weather conditions and terrain surface [16]. The dependence of the power and speed of the wind passing through a swept area of wind turbine is expressed as follows:…”

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“…The analysis results indicated the effectiveness of microgrid deployment in reducing the system lifecycle cost, cost of energy, and emission cost. In addition to substantial energy savings, a grid-connected microgrid can enhance the energy resilience of a community under the upstream network failures [9].…”