A double-shell design approach for multiobjective optimal design of microgrids

This work develops a new double shell approach to optimal design for multi-objective optimally managed systems. The cost of each design solution can be defined by the evaluation of operational issues and capital costs. In most systems, the correct definition of operational issues can be deduced by means of the solution of a multi-objective optimization problem. The evaluation of each design solution must thus be deduced using the outcome of a multi-objective optimization run, namely a Pareto hyper-surface in the n-dimensional space of operational objectives. In the literature, the design problem is usually solved by considering a single objective formulation of the operational issue. In this paper, the proposed double shell approach is implemented using evolutionary computation and it is explained considering the problem of optimal microgrids design. For this problem the multiple operational impacts identification corresponds to the solution of the optimal unit commitment of generators. After an introductory part, the particular problem formulation is presented and an interesting application of the considered approach to a medium size micro-grid is shown. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.