Front. Energy 2012, 6(1): 1220 DOI 10.

1007/s11708-012-0172-3

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Trina SOM, Niladri CHAKRABORTY

Economic analysis of a hybrid solar-fuel cell power delivery system using tuned genetic algorithm

Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

Abstract An economic evaluation of a network of distributed energy resources (DERs) comprising a microgrid structure of power delivery system in an Indian scenario has been made. The mathematical analysis is based on the application of tuned genetic algorithm (TGA). The analyses for optimal power operation pertaining to minimum cost have been made for two cases in Indian power delivery system. The rst case deals with the consumers individual optimal operation of DERs, while in the second one, consumers altogether form a microgrid with the optimal supply of power from DERs. The total annual costs for these two cases are found to be economically competitive and encouraging. A reduction of approximately 5.7% in the annual cost has been obtained in the case of microgid system than that in the separately operating consumers system for a small locality of India. It is observed that the application of TGA results in a reduction of the minimum cost depicting an improved outcome in terms of energy economy. Keywords distributed energy resources (DERs), microgrid, tuned genetic algorithm (TGA)

Introduction

Currently, most of the conventional energy resources in centralized power providing schemes are facing high pressure of environmental protection. Consequently a new developing technology, known as distributed energy resources (DERs), has come up to supplement the centralized power system. DERs or distributed generators (DGs) are usually located close to energy loads. They share medium markets which are expected to increase in future
Received October 11, 2011; accepted November 28, 2011 Trina SOM ( ), Niladri CHAKRABORTY Power Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700098, India E-mail: trinasom@gmail.com

leading to a much more decentralized energy system. The DERs play a key role in reducing environmental pollution through utilization of non-conventional and renewable energy sources. A number of works [16] relating to the design and operation of DERs are available in the literature. One of the most important issues associated with DER is the economy which unfortunately has not yet been fully standardized. To overcome the power distribution difculties in a conventional power delivery system, the concept of microgrid has come up as a new electricity delivery system [1]. Possibilities of developing microgrid with DERs have been depicted in Refs. [79]. Though the technical issues of microgrid have been dealt by several researchers [911], adequate attention has not yet been paid to the economic evaluation of these newly built microgrids. Zoka et al. [12] presented a technique of minimizing total cost of a microgrid energy delivery system by optimal operation planning of DERs. Though this technique provided a precise solution, it could not take into account issues such as imprecision, partial truth, uncertainty, and approximation which are essential to achieve tractability, robustness, ease of implementation and low solution cost. In order to arrive at a solution that incorporates all these issues, it is apparent that soft computing techniques could be of more benecial and adaptive in nature. Applications of different evolutionary methods on economic load dispatch and load scheduling problems are available in Refs. [1317]. However evolutionary approach in the analysis of energy economy for a microgrid system with different frameworks of energy delivery resources has hardly been found in the literature. Among many evolutionary methods, genetic algorithm (GA) technique is found to be effectively applicable to various optimization problems and is most appropriate and functionally excellent [18,19] for the problems, where locating the global optimum is a difcult task. It allows the developer to explore and modify the control variables in a largely feasible variable space, instead of having a precise

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domain expertise. Further, modications to the basic GA can also be made to develop new methods for exploring better results in such optimization problems. However, application of such techniques to optimal operation of DERs resulting in cost minimization is rare. The present paper depicts an economic evaluation of a microgrid power delivery network through optimal power operation planning of DERs for different cases of Indian load demand scenario by the application of a tuned genetic algorithm (TGA). Due to lack of availability of data on the operation of microgrid systems, and large gap between power demand and supply, attempts have been made for different case studies by considering an Indian power delivering framework in a small locality. This corresponds to ve types of consumers: hostel, market, bank & post ofce, hospital, and campus-quarters. Two seasons, winter and summer, are considered. The surplus or shortfall in load demand between winter and summer season has been taken into account to cover up the total power demand of every consumer over a whole year. To cope with any shortfall in power generation, microgrids driven by diesel generator sets are often formed in small localities, which obviously have an adverse impact on environment. Fuel cells generally operate without high temperature combustion. The losses associated with mechanical-to-electrical conversion processes, as found in all conventional electrical power producing systems are nil in these cases. Renewable energy sources are found to improve the status of environment by eliminating the harmful gases emitted by diesel generators along with saving the running fuel costs of different non-renewable resources. Among the renewable resources, the wind energy is place dependent and generally varies from season to season and sometimes becomes unpredictable, while the waste products required for bio-mass power plant are not always desirable as DERs in the localities comprising hospitals and residence. India being a tropical country with reliable daily solar radiations, production of consumable electricity from solar energy resources can also be highly effective. It is therefore, worthwhile to study a power delivery system comprising of fuel cells and solar modules as DERs. The present power delivery system comprises fuel cells and solar modules as DERs or DGs and a battery system to supply power to a small locality in an Indian scenario. Moreover, a provision for purchasing electricity in contract with utility is also considered in both the types of power delivery system. The microgrid stem considered for the economic analysis has been structured by connecting the DERs to the consumers load through transformers, circuit breakers, distribution lines and a controller. Two test cases, namely, separately operating consumers system and consumers together forming a microgrid system have been considered for the economic evaluation of the power delivery system. It is observed that application of TGA could provide better results for microgrid system in

comparison to that for separately operating consumers, thereby developing probable encouraging future power delivery scenario for small Indian localities.

Problem formulation

A cost estimation of an Indian power delivery system, based on the consumers own policy, has been made. The power delivery systems refer to two test cases of ve types of consumers with two types of seasonal load variations in an Indian small residential locality. The two specic cases are as follows: 1) Consumers do not form any microgrid system and individually operate with optimal supply of DERs and make a contract with the utility. 2) All the consumers together form the microgrid with optimal operation of DERs. The DERs comprise phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFCs), solar photovoltaic system (SPS) and a lead acid battery energy storage system (BESS). PAFC is the most advanced one among the various types of fuel cell having capacities ranging from 50 kW to 11 MW [20,21]. High efciency, low chemical and thermal emissions, siting and fuel exibility, reliability, low maintenance, excellent part-load performance, and modularity of PAFC prove to be more advantageous over conventional power generating equipment [2123]. Presently, micropower systems consisting of solar modules have a better economical merit to serve a nearby load [2426]. Of all batteries, lead acid battery is technologically the most mature, having high efciency with lowest initial storage cost [27]. A provision of purchasing and selling of electricity in contract with utility has also been considered. Economic evaluation is performed by minimizing total annual cost subject to the physical constraints of balanced power demand-supply, and range of the installed capacity of DERs.
2.1 Objective function

The objective function is the total annual cost of the consumers, which is given as R RO RI RM RU , (1)

where, RO, RI, RM, RU are operating cost, initial cost, microgrid cost, and utility cost, respectively, and are given as RO
n m X X cons1 ss1

Nods

t24 X

Pfc ss,hr,consOfc (2)

hrt1 hrt8 ;t16

Pbt ss,hr,consObt : The rst term in the right hand side of the above equation is the total operating cost of fuel cell, where Pfc

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and Ofc are power generation and running cost of fuel cell, respectively. The second term represents the operating cost of the BESS with Pbt and Obt as power generation and operating cost of the battery, respectively. No cost is incurred between 816 hours, since the solar module with zero running cost is in operation during this period. The power generated from solar energy (Pso) depends on certain geographical and environmental factors which is expressed [24] as   G Pso Df RCPV s , (3) Ss where, Df is the derating factor, RCPV is the rated capacity of the solar array, Gs and Ss are global solar radiation incident on the surface of solar array and standard solar radiation for the rated capacity. The number of days per season is represented by Nods. Cons, hr, and ss are the consumer, season and time index, respectively. The initial cost is calculated from RI
n X

respective depreciation rates and life times as ,,l, dr sw,tfm,cbl,c : 1 dr Lftsw,tfm,cbl,c

t24 X hrt1 Lft

(7)

The utility cost is given as RU

n m X X cons1 ss1

Nods

ep Pp ss,hr,cons (8)

es Psl ss,hr,cons 12eb maxPp cons:

ICfc cons ICbt cons (4)

The rst term of the above equation gives the cost related to the electricity purchased from the utility. The second term corresponds to the income by selling electricity to the utility, and the last term is the base charge of electricity for contracting with the utility. The power purchasing and selling rates for purchased power (Pp) and of selling power (Psl) are ep and es, respectively. The base charge of electricity for contracting with the utility is considered as eb. However these costs are subjected to many constraints that need to be considered for economic cost analysis.
2.2 Constraining functions

cons1

Ifc ICfc Ibt ICbt Iso ,

where, the initial costs of DG and BESS are ICfc and ICbt, respectively. For determining the total annual depreciation expenses of DG and BESS, the initial capital costs are multiplied by factors and , respectively. Ifc and Ibt are the allowed interest rate of return on the initial investment by the funding agency. Iso is the initial cost of SPS. Sinking fund method has been used to nd and with dr as the rate of depreciation and Lft as the life time of DERs. Hence and can be found as dr fc,bt , : 1 dr Lftfc,bt 1 The microgrid cost is expressed as RM ICsw ICtfm lICcbl ICc Isw ICsw Itfm ICtfm Icbl ICcbl Ic ICc , (6)
Lft

In order to minimize the total cost, i.e., Eq. (1), the optimal power operation planning of DERs is considered as the main functional constraint given as
n X cons1

DE ss,hr,cons Pfc ss,hr,cons Pso ss,hr,cons Pbt ss,hr,cons Pp ss,hr,cons Psl ss,hr,cons, (9)

(5)

where, DE is the load demand for n different consumers. The other side constraining functions are 0Pfc hr,consICfc cons, 0Pso hr,consICso cons, 0Pbt hr,consICbt cons, 0Pfc ,Pbt ,Pp ,Psl ,ICfc ,ICso ,ICbt , (10) (11) (12) (13)

where, the initial costs of the switching equipment, transformer, cable and controller are given as ICsw, ICtfm, ICcbl, ICc, respectively. The interest rates on initial investment of switching equipment, transformer, cable and controller are considered as Isw, Itfm, Icbl, and Ic respectively. The annual returns on the capital base for these equipments are given as Isw ICsw, ItfmICtfm, IcblICcbl, IcICc, respectively. The multiplying factors for determining the annual depreciation values for switching equipment, transformer, cable and controller are , , l and , respectively, which are computed by the sinking fund method with the

where, Eqs. (10)(12) give the upper and lower limits of power output from DGs and BESS to match the electric demand respectively, while Eq. (13) ensures that all the variables are positive. ICfc, ICso and ICbt are the installed capacities for fuel cell, SPS and BESS, respectively. With the objective function and constraining functions known apriori, a modication over conventional GA has been made and applied for economic analysis of these systems.

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Solution methodology

GA is based on the concept of gene mutation theory [28]. The GA generally operates through the following steps, where at rst a population of solutions is randomly generated by covering the entire constraining ranges. As the solutions in the population are randomly generated, all of them may not be equally competent in terms of their tness value. An operator probabilistically selects a group of good solutions from the original pool of population on the basis of their tness values relating to each row and thus forms a mating pool of new solutions. Then the parent variables of the objective function goes through a probabilistic check and participate in crossover using crossover operands [2932]. This results in producing better children solutions. In the last step mutation is performed to bring a local change over the current solutions [33]. A modication is done over the conventional GA by comparing the best tness value between two consecutive iterations to have a better population set of solutions. The modied algorithm is named as TGA. This tuning for choosing better population set for the next iteration evaluation is done by replacing the individuals of the population with the row of individuals corresponding to the better ttest value between two consecutive iterations. This procedure continues until the difference between the ttest values as computed at the end of every generation from that of its previous one reaches the dened tolerance value. The above stated algorithm considered for the solutions in the present problem has been developed. An optimal power operation of DERs has been performed to have the minimum cost of power delivery system by the application of TGA. This TGA method has been efciently utilized to have the optimal value for the above mentioned problem. The implementation logic of this evolutionary method is briey described as follows Step 1: A population is created to initialize population. These population matrices pertain to the generation of power by fuel cell, SPS, battery, purchasing power and selling power which are dened as
fc fc fc so so so Phr1 ,:::,Phr i ,:::,PhrN , Phr1 ,:::,Phri ,:::,PhrN , bt bt bt Phr1 ,:::,Phr i ,:::,PhrN , p p p Phr1 ,:::,Phr i ,:::,PhrN ,

On the basis of this matrix the best tness value is calculated. Step 2: Evolutionary operations for each individual in the population are carried out by the operations of selection, crossover and mutation, which are described in the following subsections. Step 2.1: The mating pool is selected by Roulette-Wheel selection operand, where the wheel is divided into N parts so bt in proportion to the number of variables, i.e., Rfc hr , Rhr , Rhr , p sl Rhr , Rhr to get the winning area. The probabilistically selected formula is given in Eq. (14) as p fi N V X
i 1

, fi

(14)

where, p is the probability of selecting the winning area, fi is the functional value of ith population, and NV is the divided number of parts of the wheel in proportion to the number of variables. Step 2.2: Probability distribution of generated children for contracting crossover (C) and that for expanding crossover (E) is used to calculate for generating children solutions as given in Ref. [29]. The terms C and E are given in Eqs. (15) and (16) respectively as C 0:5expt 1sf expt , E 0:5expt 1=sf expt2 , (15) (16)

where, the exponent (expt) is a non-negative real number and spread factor (sf) is a well dened constant. After calculating the terms C and E, contracting crossover (sbxC) or expanding crossover (sbxE) is made under the probability distribution curve, depending on a random number r, as shown in Eqs. (17) and (18), respectively. sbxC sbxE

!0 f sf dsf r, if r<expt,
C E

(17)

!0 f sf dsf r, if r > expt:

(18)

Finally children solutions are calculated from Eqs. (19) and (20) as Ch1 0:5Pr1 Pr2 sbx absPr2 Pr1 , Ch2 0:5Pr1 Pr2 sbx absPr2 Pr1 , (19) (20)

and
sl sl sl ,:::,Phr Phr1 i ,:::,PhrN ,

respectively. The matrices are varied for h hours of power demand, with a population size of N for different consumers. The individual elements of the dened matrices are represented as single matrix in terms of cost, which is shown as Rfc,so,bt,p,sl ,Rfc,so,bt,p,sl ,:::,Rfc,so,bt,p,sl ,:::,Rfc,so,bt,p,sl : hr1 hr2 hri hrN

where, Ch1 and Ch2 are the children solutions, and Pr1 and Pr2 are the parent solutions. Step 2.3: Mutated solution have been calculated from the original ones as mentioned in Ref. [29] and shown in Eq. (21) as Chmutated Choriginal pf max, (21)

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where, Chmutated and Choriginal are the mutated solution and original crossover solution, respectively. The term max in Eq. (21) is the maximum value of perturbation dened by the user. The perturbation factor (pf) corresponding to r1 and the expt, is generally calculated from Eq. (22) as ( if r1 <0:5, 2r1 1=expt1 1, (22) pf 1 21 r1 1=expt1 , if r1 > 0:5: Step 2.4: The newly produced individuals get checked by satisfying all the constraining factors at the end of each generation. Step 3: The tness value is calculated after evaluating the population set. This tness value is now compared with the previous tness value of the initial population set. The best tness value is selected for creation of next generation population. The corresponding individuals relating to the better tness value are selected for the next iterations. Step 4: The iteration procedure is continued until the termination condition is reached. This is based on the tolerance value which is considered as the negligible difference between the best tness values of consecutive iterations. However, this proposed soft computing method has been applied to the specic cases as mentioned in Sect. 2. The input parameters required for the case studies are given in the next section.

Input parameters

Temporal variations of load during a day in a small residential locality of an academic institution in an Indian city are considered. Consumers in the form of hostel,

market, bank & post-ofce, hospital, and campus-quarters belonging to the specic locality together form a microgrid. The load variations of ve different consumers in the locality for summer and winter seasons are given in Figs. 1 and 2, respectively. Figure 3 shows the average load demand variation over a day by all the consumers forming an Indian microgrid power delivery system. The input parameters required for estimating the cost of a microgrid power delivery system include the initial and running cost of DERs, constructional cost of microgrid power system, and electricity charges from conventional power grid. The total cost of PAFC and BESS comprises two major parts: net structure value cost and running cost, while SPS does not include any running cost. Prices related to the initial and operating cost of DERs for consumers individual operation and as a microgrid power delivering network, are presented in Table 1 [26,27,3437]. The initial installation of DERs depends on different load demands for different consumers. For a load demand in kW range, an enormous loss related to a huge amount of current ow may occur. So, a step-up transformer at the generation site and a step-down transformer at the consumers end have been installed for safe and reliable power transmission. It is known1) that the costs associated with the higher-sized cables inclusive of their losses are much higher than the prices for setting up transformers. Moreover, a controller, change over switches and circuit breakers are placed, at a common point of PAFC, solar module, battery and grid. The costs for constructing microgrid are listed in Table 2, while set-up costs for consumers individual operation are displayed in Table 3. Contract charges are considered at rates representative of conventional power grids in the Indian scenario. The base

Fig. 1 Load demand in summer for different types of consumer in Indian context
1) Private communication: E & M State Head Ofce, IIT Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

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Fig. 2

Load demand in winter for different types of consumer in Indian context

Fig. 3 Load demand variation of all consumers forming a microgrid for a day Table 1 Parameters related to the cost of DERs
Consumers (system) Hostel (Individual) Market (Individual) Campus-quarters (Individual) Hospital (Individual) Bank & post ofce (Individual) Microgrid system Initial cost of PAFC /105 Rs 252.0 226.8 189.0 226.8 189.0 882.0 Initial cost of SPS /105 Rs 348 348 348 348 348 1312 Initial cost of BESS /Rs 102555 102555 102555 102555 102555 1333555 Running cost of PAFC /(Rs$kW1$h1) 10 10 10 10 10 10 Running cost of BESS /(Rs$kW1$h1) 6 6 6 6 6 6

Table 2

Data associated to the constructional cost of microgrid

Cost/103 Rs 437 3350 20 10900 Life time/a 6 15 30 20

Equipments forming microgrid Switching equipments Transformers (step-up & step-downs) Controller Cables (underground & overhead )

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Table 3 Data associated to the set-up cost for each consumer

Equipments Switching equipments Transformers (step-up & step-downs) Controller Cables (underground & overhead ) Cost/103 Rs 437 115 20 6.555 Life time/a 6 15 30 20

rate is Rs 200 per kVA, while the electricity rate is Rs 6.30 per kWh during summer months and Rs 2.68 per kWh during winter months. TGA is applied to the present problem in consideration of these parameters for the two case studies as mentioned in Sect. 2.

Results and discussion

In the present work, analysis of optimal operation of DERs pertaining to minimum cost of power delivery system for two test cases has been made by the application of TGA. The obtained results also show the electricity prices per unit for every consumer. Optimal power distributions as computed by TGA for case 1 (consumers individually operating with optimal supply of DERs) and case 2 (consumers forming a microgrid with optimal operation of DERs) are given in Tables 4 and 5, respectively. Tables 4 and 5 present the optimal power generation by DERs for individual consumers operation and consumers forming microgrid operation, respectively. The results in Table 4 illustrate that powers generated from fuel cell are different for different consumers. This is due to the optimal power generations by PAFC depending on different load demands for ve different consumers. Since the running cost of SPS system is nil, the average SPS capacity has been optimally chosen to be the same for all the consumers. The difference between power demand and generation of power from DGs denes the power deviation. Positive power deviation indicates that less power is generated with respect to the load demand, while negative power deviation shows that more power is generated with respect to the load demand. The powers generated from BESS are decided on the basis of positive power deviations. Beside BESS, powers are also purchased from conventional power grid to meet the peak load demands. The peak positive difference in power varies from consumer to consumer, and so does the average contracted capacity. The negative power deviations which
Table 4 Optimal power generation for case 1
Optimal power generation Average fuel cell capacity/kW Average SPS capacity/kW Average BESS capacity/kW Purchased capacity/kW Hostel 194.6 80 101 50 Hospital 163 80 99 40

arise during dip load demand period are used by selling through contract with the conventional power grid. Table 5 demonstrates that powers generated from BESS relating to the average power deviation are found to be less for the microgrid system as compared to that of the consumers operating individually. The reason for this is that in the case of a microgrid system, the base demand of a certain consumer covers the peak demand of other consumers by the installed capacity of the DERs. A similar pattern of optimal power generation has been noticed for both the consumers operating individually and consumers form a microgrid together (Tables 4 and 5). It has been observed that the range of optimal power generation generally varies with consumer load demands to limit unnecessary power generation, and thus provides a cost effective power delivery system. It can also be mentioned in this context, that in addition to the economic factor, the decentralized microgrid system also provides reliable power to the consumers because of the appropriate back-up supply from BESS and conventional power grid in the case of positive power deviation including peak demand periods. The computed total annual cost considering case 1 is exhibited in Table 6. The variations in minimum cost for different consumers are caused by their respective typical load demand. Table 7 shows a comparison of total annual cost between case 1 (consumers operating individually with optimal supply of DERs) and case 2 (consumers forming a microgrid with optimal operation of DERs). It is observed that a reduction of approximately 5.7% in the annual cost takes place in the case of microgrid system as compared to that of consumers operating separately. Hence microgrid efciently meets the energy requirements of various end users, with reliability, and availability of power from DERs at a cheaper cost. Table 8 illustrates the per unit energy cost calculated for every consumers operating both as individual power system and microgrid power system. The above results
Bank & post-ofce 85 80 72 30

Campus-quarters 125 80 92 30

Market 160 80 128 20

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Table 5 Optimal power generation for case 2

Optimal power generation Average fuel cell capacity/kW Average SPS capacity/kW Average BESS capacity/kW Purchased capacity/kW Microgrid power system 641 310 126 20

separately operating consumers system. Thus the current work also demonstrates that a TGA can be successfully and reliably implemented in this type of optimization problem instead of the traditional method of linear programming [12], and other conventional evolutionary methods which involve an exhaustive search and long computational time.

Table 6 Computed minimum costs for different consumers of case1

Consumer Hostel Hospital Campus-quarters Market Bank & post ofce Total annual cost/103 Rs 31820 29819 31140 31811 27220

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Table 7 Comparison of total cost between cases 1 and 2

Consumers operation Individual operation Microgrid Total annual cost/103 Rs 151811 143052

Table 8 Per unit cost for consumers (cases1 and 2)

Consumer Hostel Hospital Campus-quarters Market Bank & post ofce Microgrid Electric price per unit/Rs 25.2 26.1 24.3 22.6 26.3 20.4

show that a reduction of per unit cost occurs in case 2 from that of case 1. This range varies from 11% to 23%.

Conclusions

A mathematical simulation for economic evaluation of DERs with a microgrid frame work has been made using TGA, in the context of an Indian power delivery system. It is observed from the present work, that microgrid power delivery system with an optimal operation of DERs is more economical with a reduction of 5.7% in the total annual cost as compared to that of a consumers-individually operating DERs. It has been inferred from the obtained results, that this type of microgrid power delivery system consisting of PAFC coupled with SPS, in a small Indian locality may facilitate future power scenario, with reliable distributed power sources. The simulation based on TGA, developed for the purpose also provides a reduction in per unit energy cost of approximately 19% from that of

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