Reliability Varying Characteristics of PV-ESS-Based Standalone Microgrid

Reliability is of critical importance for the microgrid (MG) and deserved more attention. Aiming at photovoltaics (PV) and energy storage system (ESS) based MG, the microturbine (MT), PV, ESS and comprehensive load (CL) which is composed of hourly time-varying component, stochastic component, and controllable component, are chronologically modeled and combined with model of load shedding minimization and sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) simulation algorithm. Then, the reliability assessment framework is developed and employed in the comprehensive case studies. Firstly, varying characteristics of reliability indices, including loss of load probability (LOLP), average service availability index (ASAI), system average interruption duration index (SAIDI), system average interruption frequency index (SAIFI) and customer average interruption duration index (CAIDI), over PV penetration are investigated, and the surge effect of SAIFI (SE-SAIFI) is especially put forward and studied, followed by the principle of PV capacity decision considering SE-SAIFI. Secondly, the clear pictures of reliability profiles over ESS sizes are depicted and analyzed, following with a novel method to reasonably decide ESS sizes based on the definition of expected hourly redundant power (EHRP). At last, reliability indices of multiple scenarios with different percentages of controllable load are calculated and the benefits of load management are analyzed in the viewpoint of reliability of standalone MG. Results of the case studies also confirm the necessities of reliability assessment during the MG planning and size optimization, and the validity of the methodologies developed in this work.