Abstract
The dispatch of energy and resources in agricultural systems often involves the definition and resolution of optimization problems. This paper presents a novel tool composed of a set of MATLAB® and Simulink® files that has been developed to ease such tasks. In contrast to other alternatives, it allows the consideration of multiple kinds of resources in the problem and the relationships between the inputs and outputs of the system; its parametrization can be defined graphically in Simulink® without requiring third party software, and the entire package is freely available on Github. The package can generate the constraints in MATLAB® code and can get the optimal dispatch schedule for the deterministic mixed-integer linear problem that represents the defined system. Its main functions and blocks as well as a case study based on a traditional Mediterranean greenhouse and a photovoltaic parking lot located in Almeria (Spain) are included to demonstrate its use and clarify how the problem is formulated. The simulation performed validates the tool as being useful for decision-making (schedule irrigation and CO2 enrichment, as well as managing storage systems) in these and similar environments. Future implementations are intended to incorporate the interconnection of agents with opposed interests and robust optimization strategies for uncertain scenarios.
Highlights
Today’s realization that the energy sector must move towards a more efficient, affordable, reliable, safe, and sustainable system is encouraging research on the generation, transport, consumption, and storage processes [1]
The number of papers related to energy hub (EH) has been constantly growing, as supported by some of the reviews that give an overview on this topic [6,7], and the term has settled down as well as others, such as microgrid (MG), virtual power plant (VPP), or multi-energy system (MES), which tend to appear in similar energy dispatch problems [8]
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, many of the control systems proposed in the literature come from the field of chemical engineering, which has traditionally used a hierarchy of levels or layers to distinguish different tasks performed in industry [50]
Summary
Today’s realization that the energy sector must move towards a more efficient, affordable, reliable, safe, and sustainable system is encouraging research on the generation, transport, consumption, and storage processes [1]. To the authors’ knowledge, MATLAB R is extensively employed in this field of research, both as a standalone version and combined with other optimization-assisted modeling tools It happens to be one the more common programming languages as well, together with Python and GAMS [25], but despite its potential, to date, very few specific tools for dealing with the most common problems in EHs have been developed and made freely available. There is still room for improvement in certain aspects that the researchers might demand: Less experienced users might struggle with coding, and there exists no graph-based modeling tool for the MATLAB R environment that allows one to formulate and solve resource dispatch problems; four out of the seven packages are focused on purely electric systems (3,4,5,6), only three are freely available online and properly documented (1,2,3), and some of them require third-party software that is subject to a license (1,5,6). The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the model coded to solve the optimization problem; Section 3 contains a description of the main modules and their configuration parameters; Section 4 shows an example case where the ODEHubs toolbox is employed to obtain the operation schedule for the greenhouse and its facilities; Section 5 analyzes the current drawbacks of ODEHubs and future enhancements
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