Modeling and optimization of a hybrid solar-battery-diesel power system for remote consumers

Hybrid power systems can be affected by various uncertain parameters such as technical, economic, and environmental factors. These parameters may have both positive and negative impacts on the overall performance of the system. Therefore, in this study, an effective optimization method for modeling and optimization of a hybrid solar-battery-diesel power structure for remote consumers is proposed. The purpose of this method is to find the optimal configuration of the hybrid structure from the technical-economical-environmental point of view to cover the load demand requirements of remote consumers. To verify the performance of the hybrid microgrid, the results of the hybrid system based on the hourly meteorological data and load profile are compared with the results of the conventional diesel generator (DG). The optimization problem is solved using a harmony search optimization algorithm. The results show that the solar/battery/DG system is more suitable than the DG-only system in different uncertainty indexes based on economic and environmental aspects. Also, by the increase of the uncertainty index from 0.5 to 10%, the optimal total cost of the system decreases by 36.5%, while at the same time the unavailability value increases from 0.2259% to 9.9568%. Additionally, when the interest rate value increases from 1 to 7%, the total cost value increases around 17. 4%.