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In residential units (RUs), utilizing a grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) source allows reducing the energy bill, as well as guarantee a continuous supply. However, the large-scale injection of PV energy surplus may cause congestion in the electrical network (EN), especially in the feeders, compromising its safety and reliability. To address this concern, this work proposes a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for the intelligent management of energy in an RU with the support of a hybrid PV scheme (HPVS). The proposed model aims to minimize the energy consumption costs due to the optimal scheduling of residential appliances usage, including the electric vehicle (EV) battery charging. The proposed HPVS makes efficient use of a PV-array, storage battery (SB), and the energy provided by EN in order to meet the consumption needs of the RU. Operating constraints and technical limits related to the performance of each technology are considered. The simulation of uncertainties in the home appliances usage, EV charging, as well as the levels of solar radiation due to weather variation, are performed to obtain a more realistic MILP model. The results show the efficient performance of the proposed HPVS scheme in reducing RU energy consumption costs, as well as in optimizing the lifetime of the equipment, such as SB, PV array, EN’s domestic distribution network, without compromising the continuity of the supply service.

Demand response (DR) programs based on pricing options allow residential customers to achieve a financial reduction in their energy bill due to changes in their consumption patterns, especially during peak periods. However, when a large number of consumers adopt this energy management program, the demand shifted to periods with low energy prices can generate new demand peaks. As a result, the quality of the power supply service may be compromised. To address this concern, this paper proposes a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model that aims to improve the load factor (LF) related to the demand profile of customers. To achieve this goal, an intelligent scheduling strategy for household appliances that considers flexibility in customer comfort, here called customer hourly preferences, is developed. Based on these preferences, the strategy seeks the efficient daily usage of smart appliances, mainly those with higher average power, to avoid its coincident consumption in periods with lower energy rates, thus mitigating the appearance of new peaks. In the proposed model, the operating expenses of both customers and the electricity company (ECO) are minimized. A set of technical and operational constraints such as the average power, number of times utilized, and average time of usage of home appliances, as well as the charging rate, average time for charging, and initial state-of-charge (SoC) of the plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) battery, are considered. Uncertainties related to the periods of the day when a given appliance (including PEV) is turned-on for consumption are modeled using a Monte Carlo Method (MCM). The MILP model is solved using a commercial solver CPLEX that makes use of classical optimization techniques to ensure the optimal solution to this problem. The performance of the MILP model was tested through two case studies. Case study 1 considers a group of consumers with the same income, while case study 2 triples the number of consumers in the previous case considering different incomes. The results show the importance of the proposed tool for analyzing and evaluating prospective scenarios that guarantee the efficient usage of electric energy with the lowest financial expense for both consumers and the ECO.

The optimal power flow (OPF) is a key tool in the planning and operation of power systems, and aims to optimize the operational costs involved in the production and transport of energy by adjusting control variables to meet operational, economic, and environmental constraints. To achieve this goal, a successful implementation of an expeditious and reliable optimization algorithm is crucial. To this end, this paper proposes and scrutinizes a novel fuzzy adaptive hybrid configuration oriented to a joint self-adaptive particle swarm optimization (SPSO) and differential evolution algorithms, namely FAHSPSO-DE, to address the multi-objective OPF (MOOPF) problem. For the sake of practicality, the objectives with innate differences such as total fuel cost, active power losses, and the emission are selected. Due to the practical limitations in real power systems, additional restrictions, including valve-point effect, multi-fuel characteristic, and prohibited operating zones, are also taken into account. In order to validate the performance of the proposed approach, ten various benchmark functions are examined, while three IEEE standard systems such as IEEE 30-, 57-, and 118-bus test systems are employed to demonstrate the performance and suitability of the proposed approach in solving the OPF problem expeditiously. Results have been compared with those in the literature and show the effectiveness of our proposal in handling different scales, multi-objective, and non-convex optimization problems.