Optimal Operating Schedule for Energy Storage System: Focusing on Efficient Energy Management for Microgrid

A microgrid is a group of many small-scale distributed energy resources, such as solar/wind energy sources, diesel generators, energy storage units, and electric loads. As a small-scale power grid, it can be operated independently or within an existing power grid(s). The microgrid energy management system is a system that controls these components to achieve optimized operation in terms of price by reducing costs and maximizing efficiency in energy consumption. A post-Industry-4.0 consumer requires an optimal design and control of energy storage based on a demand forecast, using big data to stably supply clean, new, and renewable energy when necessary while maintaining a consistent level of quality. Thus, this study focused on software technology through which an optimized operation schedule for energy storage in a microgrid is derived. This energy storage operation schedule minimizes the costs involved in electricity use. For this, an optimization technique is used that sets an objective function representing the information and costs pertaining to electricity use, while minimizing its value by using Mixed Integer Linear Programming or a Genetic Algorithm. The main feature of the software is that an optimal operation schedule derivation function has been implemented with MATLAB for the following circumstances: when the basic operation rules are applied, when operating with another grid, when the external operating conditions are applied, and when the internal operating conditions are applied.