Renewable Energy Dispatch Control Algorithms for a Mixed-use Building

The ongoing transition to distributed power systems that utilize both conventional and renewable sources is creating a need to better integrate loads with variable power. This work investigates the co-design of a mixed-use building and dedicated microgrid that includes wind, solar, battery storage, thermal storage, and grid backup. The building contains a mix of residential and restaurant space, and historical meter data along with a commercial kitchen model are used to develop a load model. The building's total hot-water consumption along with a central storage tank form a deferrable load. A dispatching algorithm is designed to transfer available renewable power to the load, battery, and thermal storage while maintaining the battery and thermal storage between limits. The design goal is to size the system and choose a dispatch algorithm to minimize system cost while having high renewable energy penetration and low renewable power curtailment.