Stochastic operation of interconnected microgrids

This paper proposes a new stochastic framework for optimal operation and management of interconnected microgrids (MGs). The proposed method aims to minimize the total network costs including the cost of power generation by units, start up and shut down costs of units, and cost of power exchange among the MGs themselves and with the main grid. In order to get a realistic analysis, unscented transform is employed to model the uncertainties associated with the wind turbine and photovoltaic output power, load demand, and energy price forecast errors. Since the proposed problem is a complex, nonlinear constraint optimization problem, a new optimization algorithm based on crow search algorithm is proposed, here in this paper. A new modification method based on Levy flight is developed to increase the algorithm diversity during the optimization process. The feasibility and satisfying performance of the proposed method are examined on the IEEE 32 bus test system.