Assessing Operational Flexibility of Microgrids Considering Electrical and Thermal Energy Resources

With high growth rate of demand for energy in different societies, the need for energy resources has been increased significantly. This has resulted in introduction of new energy resources, i. e. renewable energy resources in generation sector of energy systems. However, the intrinsic features of these energy resources call for higher flexibility in different sectors of energy systems. Flexibility in a comprehensive sense tries to cover the amount of imbalance between production and demand in energy systems. This paper has attempted to introduce the concept of operational flexibility in microgrids and it also has presented a step-by-step algorithm to assess this operational index based on a linear optimization model. This study focuses on the thermal flexibility provided by combined heat and power (CHP) units to address the ability of these units to meet the difference between production and demand in microgrids and it has been implemented on a test system.