Energy Storage and Transmission Line Design for an Island System With Renewable Power

Abstract

This paper addresses an energy system design problem for an island system that relies on renewable sources such as wind or solar PV. Typically disconnected from main grids, island systems, i.e., small islands or remote areas, often resort to costly power generation sources such as diesel. The design problem considered here includes the capacity decisions of energy storage systems (ESSs) and transmission lines that minimize total annual operation and investment costs. To address this challenge, we first introduce a deterministic mixed-integer linear program that is immediately extended to consider the stochastic demand and renewable generation via sample average approximation method. We implement our model on a case partly based on El Hierro, a small island in the Canary Islands of Spain. Through our experimental analysis, we generate a number of managerial insights into system design decisions and operational outcomes under a variety of storage characteristics, renewable sources, and spatial considerations.