Economic generation scheduling of a microgrid using mixed integer programming

To solve the economic generation scheduling of a microgrid, the linearization techniques were developed to convert the optimization problem into a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem. Firstly, an economic generation scheduling model was established. According to the output-fuel cost characteristics of the fuel-consuming distribution generations (DGs) and the charge/discharge characteristics of the battery, corresponding approximated linearization functions were established. A commercial mixed-integer linear programming software was applied to solve the problem. Finally the MILP method was compared to the genetic algorithm (GA). Numerical tests were conducted and the computational simulation results verified the effectiveness of the proposed approaches. The results indicate the MILP method is a promising approach to solve this problem with high accuracy and low time consumption and can provide rapid and accurate scheduling information for short-term and super short-term energy management of microgrids.