Optimal Stochastic Operation of Micro Multi-Carrier Energy Hubs

Abstract:
In the past, developed countries designed, built, and operated different infrastructures independently to cover the tremendous needs of various energy carriers. However, revolutionary events and decisions such as man-made energy crises to achieve political or economic goals, global environmental policies to curb emissions, the advent of new technologies to capture energy from natural resources for real-time use or storage have shown that there are security, environmental, technical, and economic necessities for rearrangement of such infrastructures towards multi-carrier integrated energy systems. To reach this goal, various countries with different tools but a kind of similar roadmap began to make fundamental reformations on their energy vectors. Unbundling and deregulation of the electricity sector, emphasis on de-carbonizing the electricity portfolio using tax incentives for investments in renewable energy resources (RERs), widespread deployment of energy efficiency programs, etc. in energy infrastructures are some examples of taken measures in this regard. Urban areas (e.g., residential, commercial, office, or public buildings) are where these reformations meet and therefore can play pivotal roles in increasing the efficiency of future multi-carrier energy infrastructures. Researchers used a promising concept, so-called micro multi-carrier energy hubs (µMEHs), to accurately evaluate the performance of buildings in a network of multi-carrier energy infrastructures. Although µMEHs-based models available in the relevant literature have reached a desirable level of maturity, with ever-changing techno-economic and environmental requirements, merely relying on them as a definitive model for evaluating building performance is a risky decision. It is, therefore, necessary to continuously update them from various perspectives such as modeling, design, expansion, operation, and control to take a step towards enhancing the energy conservation of buildings and thereby the performance of the entire multi-carrier energy infrastructures. The key emphasis of this Ph.D. plan is on the development of a holistic framework for the optimal stochastic operation of µMEHs (buildings) with special attention to district heating and green gas networks and storage technologies. The proposed µMEH is composed of energy conversion technologies, multi-carrier energy storage technologies (ESTs), small-scale RERs, etc. to meet its energy demands and possible interaction with upstream multi-carrier energy networks (e.g., electricity, district heating, and green gas networks). The proposed framework will be formulated as an optimization problem whose fundamental elements are techno-economic and environmental assessments and risk management. From the techno-economic and environmental assessment standpoint, the proposed framework will seek to maximize profits (revenue minus cost) and minimize pollutant emissions in the operation process of µMEH. Multi-carrier demand-side management programs (DSMPs) and trading prices related to different greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxide (NOx) will be incorporated into the proposed framework to increase the flexibility of the operation process of the µMEHs from this standpoint, respectively. Also, the impact of different ESTs in various combinations on the operation process of µMEHs will be scrutinized to attain suitable operational strategies. From the risk management perspective, the probabilistic features of different parameters such as RERs production, energy prices and demands, etc. will be modeled and treated by this framework that relies on an influential information gap decision theory (Info-Gap DT) to figure out the effects of different risk policies. Eventually, a powerful optimization algorithm will be employed to tackle the complex, practical, non-convex optimization problem embracing a nonlinear and blended-integer essence.

Funding: Self-funded