Robust Short-Term Scheduling of Integrated Heat and Power Microgrids

Combined heat and power (CHP) units are able to produce electrical energy and supply heat demand, simultaneously. This paper aims to solve the optimal power and heat generation scheduling problem of integrated heat and power microgrid (MG) considering uncertainty associated with price of selling/purchasing power from power market. The studied MG includes various types of CHP units, a thermal plant, a boiler, electrical energy storage system, and heat buffer tank. The capability of the electrical energy exchange between MG and power market is considered in this paper, where the MG is able to sell/buy power to/from the market. The objective is to obtain the optimal set points of MG components in order to minimize the operational cost of the MG considering power market price uncertainty, which is handled using the robust optimization (RO) method. It is applied to optimize the robustness of the decision-making strategy. As a result, the optimal solution, provided for optimal scheduling of MG, prevents the MG from being exposed to high operational cost considering the undesired deviation of market power prices from the forecasted amount. The proposed method is simulated and the obtained solutions are reported and analyzed for confirming the performance of the proposed RO framework.