Uncertain Scenario Based MicroGrid Optimization via Hybrid Levy Particle Swarm Variable Neighborhood Search Optimization (HL_PS_VNSO)

Within the MicroGrid environment, the Energy Resource Management (ERM) problem becomes highly complex due to the uncertainty related to the Renewable Generation (RG) such as Photovoltaic power generation (PV), Electric Vehicle (EV) trip with Grid to Vehicle (G2V) or Vehicle to Grid (V2G), Energy Market price and load demand with Demand Response (DR) programs. Each of these issues should be tackled while optimizing revenues and reducing the running costs of Virtual Power Player (VPP) that collects each of these types of energy resources from the MicroGrid. This article presents a new hybrid optimization algorithm called 'Hybrid Levy Particle Swarm Variable Neighborhood Search Optimization' (HL_PS_VNSO) to solve the ERM problem. Its key aspect is the hybridization of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and the Variable Neighborhood Search Optimization (VNS) algorithm with the enhanced step length using Levy Flight. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is measured by a 25-bus MicroGrid with 500 uncertain scenarios of the aforementioned uncertainty. The results of HL_PS_VNSO are compared with the most advanced optimization algorithms. The findings show that HL_PS_VNSO's results are superior for the Average Ranking Index (A.R.I) and Ranking Index (R.I). For effective comparative analysis of algorithms, the traditional statistical method called One-way ANOVA Tukey Analysis is used. The results from this analysis also prove the superiority of HL_PS_VNSO over the most advanced optimization algorithms.