Optimal Sizing of a Microgrid Under Grid’s Blackouts

This paper proposes a methodology to reshape the power supply of a university campus characterized by daily grid blackout hours and heavy reliance on diesel generators. The proposed microgrid includes photovoltaic (PV) arrays, battery storage (BSS), electric vehicles (EVs) and an e-scooter transportation system. An optimization problem is formulated to obtain an optimal PV/BSS capacity and e-scooter’s service charge rate (${\$}$/km) by optimizing a rule-based energy management system using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and FMINCON solver via YALMIP parser. It will be shown that the latter solver is more efficient and gives a more robust solution than the solution obtained by PSO.