Ad-hoc heuristic for design of wind-photovoltaic electrification systems, including management constraints

Isolated electrification systems based on renewable energy are a suitable option for providing many rural communities in developing countries with access to electricity. In particular, the design of wind-photovoltaic systems that combine stand-alone and micro-grid systems has proved an efficient but challenging optimization problem. Decision support tools and solution procedures have been proposed in the literature, most of them focused on techno-economic aspects. However, social aspects related to the management of the systems are a key issue for users’ satisfaction and project sustainability. Only one procedure based on mixed integer linear programming takes the management aspects into account, but excessive computing time may be required or no solutions may be found for non-small communities. Thus, a fast procedure is proposed. The validation is carried out by solving 640 instances, randomly generated from real project characteristics. Our procedure always finds a feasible solution in less than 7 s on average; and even for instances with hundreds of possible locations for equipment, the solutions are found in less than 1 min. Moreover, it finds cheaper solutions than those in the literature. Thus, the procedure represents a very efficient process for optimizing the design of electrification projects considering the technical and management constraints.