Optimal participation of low voltage renewable micro-grids in energy and spinning reserve markets under price uncertainties

Integrating independent dispatchable and non-dispatchable resources into a micro-grid platform enables the main power systems to benefit from the economic and environmental advantages of distributed generation while facilitating local, clean, and inexhaustible renewable energy production. Moreover, it makes the integrated components more visible and controllable for the whole power system. On the other hand, to properly handle multiple uncertainties inherent in the micro-grids, probabilistic energy management techniques are deployed. However, utilization of stochastic modeling and optimization tools for efficient, reliable, and cost-effective planning, operation, and control of micro-grids remains an open issue. In this paper, the optimal offering of a low voltage renewable micro-grid in the energy and reserve markets is investigated. The energy and reserve prices are assumed to be uncertain; therefore, lognormal probability density function is used to model energy and reserve price uncertainties, and the Latin Hypercube Sampling method is applied to generate appropriate prices. In addition, a bi-level stochastic programming approach is utilized to optimize the resultant large size MINLP model through the combination of AlphaECP and LindoGloabal solvers in GAMS. The value of stochastic solution is also evaluated to indicate the accuracy of the stochastic solutions.