Optimal operation of combined cooling heat and power microgrid with PEVs

Combined cooling heat and power microgrid with renewable energy sources and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) offers an effective solution to energy-related problems, such as growing energy demand, increasing energy costs, environmental concerns and grid security. Taking the advantage of bidirectional power flow characteristic of PEVs and time-of-use pricing structure, this paper proposes an energy dispatch model to optimally coordinate the electrical, cooling and heat output of various energy sources and minimize both operational costs and environmental pollution, considering various operational constraints of micro-generation, PEV charge/discharge constraints and distribution of PEV state-of-charge. On the basis of the prediction of the wind speed, power, cooling and heat demand for the next 24 hours, dynamic inertia weight particle swarm optimization algorithm is applied to optimize the operation schedule. Promising simulation results are presented to demonstrate the well-coordinated performance between the flexible PEV loads, micro-generations and external power grid by peak clipping and valley filling with minimal operational costs and pollution.