Optimizing Hybrid Energy Supply Systems of Residential Building Districts

The decentralization of energy supply has been increasing recently and different local energy concepts are being developed. This change is intended by the German Government as part of the energy transition and is supported by various measures. These measures create opportunities for new business models, which deal with the management of microgrids. Especially for residential microgrids consisting of multiple residential buildings such business models can be interesting, but their success strongly depends on the planning and operating of the microgrid. Therefore, in this paper we propose an optimization tool, which is able to solve the design problem and the operating problem for residential microgrids with hybrid dual thermal and electrical energy supply systems. The core element of the optimization tool is an already existing optimization model, formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model. In this paper, we present two extensions for this reference model, developed during an innovative practical project of a residential building district in Darmstadt, Germany. Due to the presented extensions, the model can be applied to a broader set of residential concepts and at the same time, the quality of the optimization results is increased.