Economic Analysis of Energy Efficiency Programs with Energy Storage Systems on the Optimal Smart Microgrid Energy Management

Smart microgrids (SMGs) represent an innovative and adaptive approach to energy distribution, integrating advanced technologies and intelligent control systems to enhance energy efficiency and reliability. In these SMGs, energy efficiency programs (EEPs) are initiatives designed to reduce energy consumption and improve overall energy performance in various sectors. Other flexible technology which is called energy storage systems (ESSs) to modify optimal energy management (EM). EM refers to the efficient allocation and utilization of energy resources to meet demand while minimizing operation costs. So, in the context of SMGs, optimal EM plays a critical role in achieving sustainable and cost-effective energy solutions. In this paper, optimal EM coordinated with flexible facilities i.e., electrical and thermal EEPs and also ESSs has been proposed. To this end, the presented novel EEPs have been applied to the demand model in which it was used in the context of optimal EM in SMG framework. Also, as another contribution, sensitivity analysis of the energy efficiency investment rate of EEPs along with considering ESSs on the whole operation cost is accomplished to provide better discernment for stakeholders and/ or decision-makers. The proposed objective function contains multiple distributed generations’ costs i.e., fuel, operation, and maintenance costs are modeled as mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) which is solved via CPLEX solver in GAMS software. The simulation results indicate that the whole operation cost is reduced by about 9.2% and 18.2% when utilizing only thermal EEPs with ESSs and electrical EEPs with ESSs, respectively. However, implementing both types of EEPs with ESSs results in a 27.5% decrement in the total operation cost of SMG.