An Optimization Framework for Investment Evaluation of Complex Renewable Energy Systems

Enhancing the role of renewable energies in existing power systems is one of the most crucial challenges that society faces today. However, the high variability of their generation potential and the temporal disparity between the demand and the generation potential represent technological and operational gaps that burden the massive incorporation of renewable sources into power systems. Energy storage technologies are an alternative to tackle this gap; nonetheless, their incorporation within large-scale power grids calls for decision-making tools that ensure an appropriate design and sizing of power systems that exploit the benefits of incorporating storage facilities along with renewable generation power. In this paper, we present an optimization framework for aiding the evaluation of the strategic design of complex renewable power systems. The developed tool relies on an optimization problem, the generation, transmission, storage energy location and sizing problem, which allows one to compute economically-attractive investment plans given by the location and sizing of generation and storage energy systems, along with the corresponding layout of transmission lines. Results on a real case study (located in the central region of Chile), characterized by carefully-curated data, show the potential of the developed tool for aiding long-term investment planning.