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Microgrids are frequently employed in remote regions, in part because access to a larger electric grid is impossible, difficult, or compromises reliability and independence. Although small microgrids often employ spot generation, in which a diesel generator is attached directly to a load, microgrids that combine these individual loads and augment generators with photovoltaic cells and batteries as a distributed energy system are emerging as a safer, less costly alternative. We present a model that seeks the minimum-cost microgrid design and ideal dispatched power to support a small remote site for one year with hourly fidelity under a detailed battery model; this mixed-integer nonlinear program (MINLP) is intractable with commercial solvers but loosely coupled with respect to time. A mixed-integer linear program (MIP) approximates the model, and a partitioning scheme linearizes the bilinear terms. We introduce a novel policy for loosely coupled MIPs in which the system reverts to equivalent conditions at regular time intervals; this separates the problem into subproblems that we solve in parallel. We obtain solutions within 5% of optimality in at most six minutes across 14 MIP instances from the literature and solutions within 5% of optimality to the MINLP instances within 20 minutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimal steady-state dispatch of a stand-alone hybrid power system determines a fuel-minimizing distribution strategy while meeting a forecasted demand over six months to a year. Corresponding optimization models that integrate hybrid technologies such as batteries, diesel generators, and photovoltaics with system interoperability requirements are often large, nonconvex, nonlinear, mixed-integer programming problems that are difficult to solve even using the most state-of-the-art algorithms. The rate-capacity effect of a battery causes capacity to vary nonlinearly with discharge current; omitting this effect simplifies the model, but leads to over-estimation of discharge capabilities. We present a physics-based set of integer-linear constraints to model batteries in a hybrid system for a steady-state dispatch optimization problem that minimizes fuel use. Starting with a nonlinear set of constraints, we empirically derive linearizations and then compare them to a commonly used set of constraints that assumes a constant voltage and neglects rate-capacity. Numerical results demonstrate that assuming a fixed voltage and capacity may lead to over-estimating discharge quantities by up to 16% compared to our overestimations of less than 1%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]