Optimal sizing of PV and battery-based energy storage in an off-grid nanogrid supplying batteries to a battery swapping station

Abstract Nanogrids are expected to play a significant role in managing the ever-increasing distributed renewable energy sources. If an off-grid nanogrid can supply fully-charged batteries to a battery swapping station (BSS) serving regional electric vehicles (EVs), it will help establish a structure for implementing renewable-energy-to-vehicle systems. A capacity planning problem is formulated to determine the optimal sizing of photovoltaic (PV) generation and battery-based energy storage system (BESS) in such a nanogrid. The problem is formulated based on the mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) and then solved by a robust optimization approach. Flexible uncertainty sets are employed to adjust the conservativeness of the robust optimization, and Monte Carlo simulations are carried out to compare the performance of the solutions. Case studies demonstrate the merits of the proposed applications and verify our approach