A co-ordinated dispatch model for electricity and heat in a Microgrid via particle swarm optimization

This paper develops a co-ordinated electricity and heat dispatching model for a Microgrid under a day-ahead environment. In addition to operational constraints, network loss and physical limits are addressed in this model, which were always ignored in previous work. As an important component of the Microgrid, a detailed combined heat and power (CHP) model is developed. The part load performance of CHP is modelled by a curve fitting method. Furthermore, an electric heater is introduced into the model to improve the economy of the Microgrid operation and enhance the flexibility of the Microgrid by electricity-heat conversion. Particle swarm optimization is employed to solve this model for the operation schedule to minimize the total operational cost of the Microgrid by co-ordinating the CHP, electric heater, boiler and heat storage. The efficacy of the model and methodology is verified with different operation scenarios.