Optimal Sizing of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in Microgrids

A seminar of IEEE Power & Energy Society & Power Electronics Society - WA Chapter

Thair S Mahmoud, PhD, MIEEE, MIEAust.

Senior Power System Security Engineer Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), Perth, Western Australia.

19th April 2018, 16:00 – 17:30 hrs
Venue: Lecture Theatre, Central Park Building, 152 St Georges Terrace, Perth

Registration is free, please contact: Michelle Kenworthy-Groen; Michelle.Kenworthy-Groen@aemo.com.au , (T) 08 9469 9977

Flyer: http://ewh.ieee.org/r10/w_australia/event2018/Seminar_Thair_S_Mahmoud_20180419.pdf

Abstract

A Microgrid is a small scale power system that consists of distributed generation sources; linked in an intelligent communication and control system to supply power to distributed loads. It can operate autonomously to be part of the main grid or switch to be islanded depending on its type and operation scenarios. With such complicated operation requirements, microgrids’ control in general is designed to optimize their
operation by maximising their efficiency and reliability. Operation control in microgrids including constraint dispatch/unit-commitment, ancillary services (spinning reserve, load following and reactive support) planning, can be formulated as a mixed linear integer problem, and can be solved using linear/non-linear solvers. 

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) can be a key player in optimising the operation of microgrids due to its ability to perform multi-operational functions e.g. demand management, power quality control, backup power and energy trading. Due their high installation cost, finding their right size is an essential part of the planning and design of microgrids’ development. Integrating BESS within the unit-commitment problem in microgrids requires complicated decision making algorithms and can formulate another optimization problem. The objective of this problem is reducing operation cost at minimum BESS size.

This lecture presents the art of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in operating microgrids, and using BESS to reduce their operation cost. The lecture will also cover the BESS sizing options and highlight the role of intelligence in reducing their size and maximising their utilisation.

Biography

Dr Thair Mahmoud is a power system and control engineer with extensive academic research and industry experience focused on power system operation and expansion planning.

He is a MIEEE, MIEAust and an awardee of the Australian and Malaysian International Postgraduate Research Scholarships. His current main role is a Senior Engineer at the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) performing operation and dispatch planning for the South West Interconnected System (SWIS) under the Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM). From this position he is serving as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at University of Tasmania and Edith Cowan University. Previously, he worked in different roles at Western Power’s distribution and transmission network planning. In 2015, he was nominated by Western Power to take a secondment role at Carnegie Wave Energy. In this role, he was planning the grid connection of the world’s first microgrid that involves wave energy as part of its generation mix. With this combined academic research and industry experience, he gained significant background in the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques on power system planning and operation optimization issues.

Dr Mahmoud is also an active reviewer in a number of journals and a reviewing committee member of several international conferences. His current academic research activities include: power system analysis, microgrids control, Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) placement, sizing and utilisation, Linear/Non-linear-programming based dispatch optimisation, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Agent-based load forecasting and electricity market modelling.