Multi-criteria dispatch optimization of a community energy network with desalination: Insights for trading off cost and security of supply

Mahdieh Monemi Bidgoli; Mahdi Azimian; Vahid Amir; Mehdi Zarrati; Saeid Javadi; Soheil Mohseni; Alan C Brent

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20533

Multi-criteria dispatch optimization of a community energy network with desalination: Insights for trading off cost and security of supply

Heliyon. 2023 Sep 29;9(10):e20533. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20533. eCollection 2023 Oct.

Authors

Mahdieh Monemi Bidgoli¹, Mahdi Azimian^{2

3}, Vahid Amir², Mehdi Zarrati⁴, Saeid Javadi², Soheil Mohseni^{5

6}, Alan C Brent^{5

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran.
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Kashan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kashan, Iran.
³ Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School (SIGS), Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
⁴ Department of Mathematics, Kashan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kashan, Iran.
⁵ Sustainable Energy Systems, Wellington Faculty of Engineering, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, 6140, New Zealand.
⁶ University of Technology Sydney, Institute for Sustainable Futures, Sydney, NSW, 2007, Australia.
⁷ Department of Industrial Engineering and the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa.

Abstract

The idea of community energy network is being advocated to enhance the elasticity of diverse energy systems required for efficiently integrating a substantial volume of distributed energy resources. On the other hand, the interest in renewables-based desalination systems has received significant interest recently to consider freshwater as an additional end-use product in the community energy network system. Within this context, this paper introduces a multifaceted method for community energy networks with a focus on desalination-capable systems. The central goals involve diminishing the cumulative long-term expenses of the configuration, all while concurrently augmenting the system's capacity to store electrothermal energy on a daily basis that varies - all aimed at enhancing the reliability and security of resource provisioning. Importantly, the model co-optimizes the community energy network expenditure and reserve capacities, whilst integrating electrical, thermal, and natural gas vectors, as well as providing a platform for supplying freshwater needs. The overall freshwater provisioning infrastructure incorporates a water storage system, a desalination unit, a water well component, and a water pumping system. Furthermore, for the purpose of enhancing the adaptability, the community energy network concept put forth here utilizes coordinated electrothermal responsive load initiatives. These are coupled with meticulously planned electrothermal reservoir setups to curtail the wastage of surplus renewable production amidst diverse origins of unpredictability. The normalized weighted sum method is employed to convert the proposed formulation to a single-objective problem that is amenable to commercially available solvers in GAMS software. Then, the modelling framework is adapted to a system populated for a hypothetical site. The results verify the validity of the model in yielding globally optimum results for complex community energy networks with intertwined vectors of energy and end-use products. They also indicate that relatively small raises in the size of the electric and thermal reservoirs - and insubstantial raises in the expenditure of the system - can have potentially significant impacts on the ability of the system in serving loads during contingency conditions. In particular, by implementing demand response programs a cost reduction of 2.07% is shown, which is significant in the day-ahead operational planning phase.

Keywords: Community energy network; Desalination units; Distributed energy sources; Optimization; Uncertainty.