Optimal switching in reconfigurable microgrids considering electric vehicles and renewable energy sources

Abstract

In this article, a smart stochastic framework is developed to use optimal switching to support increasing the role of renewable energy sources and electric vehicles in microgrid operation. The proposed method uses the point estimate method to model the uncertainties of electric vehicle charge and discharge demand, wind turbine, photovoltaics, load demand, and market price. The problem formulation is constructed in the form of a constrained single-objective optimization problem minimizing the total microgrid cost when meeting the practical operation constraints. Due to the high nonlinearity and the multi-modal characteristics of the proposed problem, a new optimization method based on the cuckoo search algorithm is proposed to solve the problem optimally. Also, a new three-stage modification approach is developed to increase the algorithm population and avoid the premature convergence. The feasibility and appropriate performance of the proposed method are examined on an IEEE test system. It is shown in the simulation results that using electric vehicle and optimal switching will result in better power dispatch amongst the distributed generations in the microgrid with lower power losses and costs.