Load Factor Improvement in a Standalone Microgrid using Battery Energy Storage System

The advent of renewable energy resources in the power sector has prompted plenty of microgrid projects around the world with new challenges to improve the functionality of the elements in a microgrid. This paper proposes a methodology to enhance the usefulness of one of the major components in such a system namely, the energy storage system. The proposed methodology aims at using the battery energy storage system to improve the load factor of a section of the considered IEEE 34-node test feeder network - modified to function as a standalone microgrid. The novelty of the proposed method is tested by performing simulations on the considered network for a typical one-day economic dispatch problem. The simulations, executed on MATLAB, include two case studies to present the most suitable initial state of charge of the battery energy storage system from among fully and partially charged statuses, to achieve the above objective.