Integration Method of Unit Commitment Using PL-GA Binary Dispatch Algorithm for Intermittent RES in Isolated Microgrids System

Integration of renewable energy generators with existing electrical power systems is an effective strategy to strengthen energy security in islands and remote areas. However, in the case of high penetration of renewable energy sources (RES), operations and economic aspects must be considered. One of the power plant integration schemes is the Unit Commitment (UC), a daily scheduling method to achieve optimization goals while still meeting various operational, environmental, and technical constraints. However, the existing UC method is a generic one, therefore it is necessary to develop an optimization method with a new approach based on improved PL-GA to manage the generation scheduling in microgrid power systems. The proposed solution method is the PL-GA Algorithm, an improvement from the previous studies, with optimization on economic dispatch using GA. This algorithm uses a simple and fast PL technique for the generation scheduling and dispatch stages to obtain the initial population. Then, an accurate and more flexible GA technique is used for the economic dispatch stage to avoid local optima to get the lowest total operating costs. This method has been simulated on the electricity system in Eastern Indonesia, a developing electricity system with intermittent RES power plants with good results.