Optimal Scheduling Approach for a Combined Cooling, Heating and Power Building Microgrid Considering Virtual Storage System

In this paper, a building based virtual storage system (VSS) model is developed by utilizing the heat storage characteristics of the building. Then, the VSS is integrated to the optimal scheduling model of the building microgrid (BM) for operation cost reduction. The indoor temperature of the building is adjusted within the customer temperature comfort level range to manage the charging/discharging power of the VSS. Finally, two different types of BM cases under the summer refrigeration scenario are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimal scheduling approach. Numerical studies demonstrate that the proposed optimal scheduling approach can make full use of the potential of the VSS and furthermore contribute to the operation cost reduction of the BM, while guarantee the customer temperature comfort level at the same time.