Intelligent system design optimization with dynamic load profile for a stand-alone rural Indian microgrid

This paper presents a two stage design optimization strategy for a stand-alone rural Indian microgrid for which the loads are studied and modeled for a period of 20 years. This optimizes the storage agent size leading to system cost savings and enhanced battery life without degradation in performance. The initial system utilizes HOMER to obtain a discrete design for this period, with a capacity shortage of 20%, termed as HOMER System Design (HSD). The first stage - Default System Design (DSD) redesigns the storage agent using Battery Lifetime Estimation (BLE) to meet the growing load demand which leads to 6% increase in operational efficiency than that achieved by HSD. The second stage is known as Intelligent System Design (ISD) which optimizes the redesigned storage agent size and its Depth of Discharge (DOD). DOD is optimized to maintain the target efficiency while the former efficiently allocates the resources which reduces the cumulative storage agent size by 12% and overall cost by 8.9%, thus establishing a sustainable and scalable pathway for rural electrification.