Optimal configuration and analysis of combined cooling, heating, and power microgrid with thermal storage tank under uncertainty

The optimal configuration and operation of the combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) microgrid can be easily influenced by the uncertainty of the cooling, heating, and power load. Although this process can be forecasted, the energy can still deviate from the predicted values. Therefore, this process must be properly planned to prevent unexpected problems and energy waste. In this paper, a CCHP microgrid composed of photovoltaic cell, gas turbines, gas boiler, thermal storage tank (TST), absorption chiller, electric chiller, as well as cooling, heating, and power load is studied. A nonlinear programming model is proposed, which aims to minimize the total costs of the CCHP system. A revised particle swarm optimization algorithm and Monte-Carlo simulation technique are used to solve this model. Three different configuration schemes are proposed to analyse the different influences on the system capacity. The main work of this paper includes comparing the different impacts when the cooling, heating, and power changes, respectively, simultaneously for the system configuration. Meanwhile, the sensitivity analysis for the price of natural gas versus the system configuration is also performed, which presents the function of the thermal storage tank in the system. The results indicate that the TST acts well when the system is under larger uncertainty of the cooling and heating load. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.