Designing multi-objective electric and thermal energy management system of microgrid in the presence of controllable loads and electric vehicles.

The global electricity network and natural gas have been developed worldwide. So far, various investigations in relation to energy infrastructures have been performed; however, the combination of these systems has not been examined much. For this reason, electric and thermal loads have been interconnected by CHP units, and the combined study of power and heat has helped the operator to propose a more optimal structure for energy management. Therefore, integrating different energy carriers and using the benefits of each one can increase the efficiency and reliability along with optimizing system performance. Such a capability in structure and operation requires a comprehensive framework to describe the effects of combining different energy carriers on the economic and environmental indicators of energy systems. In this paper, the microgrid has been modeled as an energy hub in order to combine different energy carriers and perform conversions in them to provide the optimal electric and thermal load required by the consumer. This structure has been created by managing the incoming carriers of gas, electricity and renewable energy and managing their conversion and storage in order to minimize the cost of energy supply and environmental pollutants. In addition to managing generation units, in order to improve the performance of the microgrid and help the operator of the microgrid, a responsive load management strategy and charging and discharging of electric vehicles have been proposed. Epsilon constraints and fuzzy decision-making methods have been used to solve this issue. The results of the study indicated that in the optimal state with the application of responsive loads, the total cost of operation has been reduced by more than 6% and the cost of environmental pollutants has been mitigated by about 13%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]