Optimal sizing of battery energy storage for micro-grid operation management using a new improved bat algorithm

•Formulate micro-grid operation management under battery energy storage sizing.•Propose a novel bat algorithm with several parallel velocity updating strategies.•Consider the effects of optimal battery sizing on micro-grid operation performance.•Validate the proposed algorithm using Rastrigin, Ackley and Griewank functions.•Test the effectiveness of the proposed framework on a micro-grid test system.

In recent years, due to large integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) like wind turbine and photovoltaic unit into the Micro-Grid (MG), the necessity of Battery Energy Storage (BES) has increased dramatically. The BES has several benefits and advantages in the MG-based applications such as short term power supply, power quality improvement, facilitating integration of RES, ancillary service and arbitrage. This paper presents the cost-based formulation to determine the optimal size of the BES in the operation management of MG. Also, some restrictions, i.e. power capacity of Distributed Generators (DGs), power and energy capacity of BES, charge/discharge efficiency of BES, operating reserve and load demand satisfaction should be considered as well. The suggested problem is a complicated optimization problem, the complexity of which is increased by considering the above constraints. Therefore, a robust and strong optimization algorithm is required to solve it. Herein, this paper proposes a new evolutionary technique named improved bat algorithm that is used for developing corrective strategies and to perform least cost dispatches. The performance of the approach is evaluated by one grid-connected low voltage MG where the optimal size of BES is determined professionally.