Optimal Design of PV/WT/Battery Based Microgrid for Rural Areas in Leh Using Dragonfly Algorithm

Abstract

This study proposes an optimal microgrid design for rural electrification in India’s Leh and Ladakh regions, using wind energy, solar, energy, and battery energy storage system. The Dragonfly Algorithm (DA) is used to calculate the optimal number of microgrid units, and results are compared with popular optimization algorithms such as Grey Wolf optimization (GWO), Differential Evolution (DE), and Discrete Harmony Search (DHS). The optimal design is based on an objective function to minimize the Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) while keeping the loss of power supply probability (LOPSP) as a reliability constraint. Three configuration studies are carried out, with three cases, each with a different maximum permissible LOPSP (LOPSPmax) value. The results show that optimal design and efficient energy management reliably meet the load demand. The energy generated from the proposed microgrid is clean compared to the grid supply, and the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is reduced by 91.2% from Configuration-I, Case-I, which is the most economical configuration. The LCOE obtained from Configuration-I, Case-I is 0.129 $/kWh, the lowest among similar systems available in the literature. To determine the parameter cost with supply, the LCOE and Total life cycle cost (TLCC) sensitivity to LOPSPmax are considered. Furthermore, statistical analysis shows that DA outperforms GWO, DE, and DHS in terms of accuracy and convergence rate.