An Integrated and Optimal Joint Scheduling of Energy Resources to Feed Electrical, Thermal and Potable Water Demands in Remote Area

The continuous spread of distributed energy resources (DERs) such as combined heating and power (CHP), diesel generators, boilers and renewable energy sources provide an effective solution to energy related problems to serve the power and heat demands with minimum cost. Moreover, the DERs may play a significant role for supplying power and heat in rural areas, where grid electricity is not available. Also, some dry areas may face water scarcity and salinity problems. So, one important solution is the use of DERs to drive desalination units in order to solve water scarcity and salinity problems. In this study, the optimal scheduling of DERs and reverse osmosis (RO) desalination unit that feed the required electric, thermal and potable water demands are determined. The present paper describes the operation constraints and cost function of components of the system in detail. Operation constraints of generation units as well as feasible region of operation CHP in dual dependency characteristic are taken into account. To confirm the performance of the proposed model the approach is tested on a realistic remote area over a 24-h period. The results show that the economical scheduling of DERs and desalination units can be obtained using proposed methodology by implementing the proposed formulation.