Utilization of in-pipe hydropower renewable energy technology and energy storage systems in mountainous distribution networks

Abstract

Million miles of gravity-fed drinking water and sewage pipelines around the world, especially in rural and urban areas in mountain ranges, have introduced a new renewable energy sources (RES), i.e., in-pipe hydropower systems (IHS). Output power of this technology, similar to other types of RES, suffers from intermittency, while it is still more predictable in comparison to other technologies of RESs. Besides, energy storage systems (ESS) are introduced as a pivotal technology for dealing with the intermittent and non-dispatchable characteristics of IHS through spatio-temporal arbitrage. This paper aims to develop a stochastic mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation that simultaneously determines the optimal location and size of ESS and IHS in a microgrid (MG) considering the correlation between prevailing uncertainties. In this regard, the proposed optimization problem minimizes the expected social cost of MG considering the AC power flow equations and operation constraints. Finally, the efficiency and applicability of the proposed model are illustrated using numerical simulations on the IEEE 33-bus distribution test system.