2020 IEEE 9th International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference (IPEMC2020-ECCE Asia) | 978-1-7281-5301-8/20/$31.

00 ©2020 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/IPEMC-ECCEAsia48364.2020.9368162

Improved Genetic Algorithm-Based Optimization

Approach for Energy Management Of Microgrid
1st Tianhao Yin 2nd Chunshui Du 3rd Alian Chen 4th Tiantian Jiang
School of Control Science School of Control Science School of Control Science School of Control Science
and Engineering and Engineering and Engineering and Engineering
Shandong University Shandong University Shandong University Shandong University
Jinan, China Jinan, China Jinan, China Jinan, China
201834588@mail.sdu.edu.cn duchsh@sdu.edu.cn chenalian@sdu.edu.cn 201834523@mail.sdu.edu.cn

5th Song Guo 6th Hongliang Zhang

School of Control Science
and Engineering
Shandong University
Jinan, China
201814440@mail.sdu.edu.cn
School of Control Science
and Engineering
Shandong University
Jinan, China
18660138145@163.com

Abstract—In order to reduce the energy scheduling cost of I. I NTRODUCTION

microgrid, this paper presents an energy management strategy
based on improved genetic algorithm. It not only coordinates the
power output between different generator units in accordance
with load fluctuation, but also adjusts dynamically the output of
the power generation units according to the real-time electricity
price. The improved genetic algorithm ensures that the best
individual of each generation can be inherited to the next gener-
ation by replacing the worst individual with the best individual.
Therefore, it is called optimal individual-based genetic algorithm
(OIGA). Before population initialization, the method performs
individual initialization, which can reduce the complexity of
the population and the time required to execute the algorithm.
Compared with genetic algorithm (GA) and MATLAB toolbox
YALMIP, the proposed method performs better in convergence
accuracy and speed.
Index Terms—Microgrid, smart energy management system,
optimal individual-based genetic algorithm (OIGA), energy man-
agement strategy, distributed generation
This work was supported in part by Shandong Pronvice Key R & D Program
(2017GGX10104), in part by Shandong Pronvice Key R & D Program (Major
Scientific and Technological Innovation Project) (NO.2019JZZY010423), in
part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant
61703239.
Microgrid is the integration of loads, distributed energy
resources (DER), and storage devices, as shown in Fig. 1. It
is considered to be one of the effective ways to make full use
of renewable energy, which leads to the rapid development of
microgrid technology [1]–[3]. For operating more efficiency
and economic, energy management system of microgrid is
quite necessary. The aim of an energy management system
is keeping the balance between the power output and demand
and minimizing microgrid operating cost.
In the numerous studies of microgrid energy management
system, how to determine the optimal operation method of
microgrid [4]–[7] and how to choose the model solving algo-
rithm [3], [5], [7]–[11] are two research hot topics. Literature
[5] proposed a multi-objective economic dispatching model,
which minimizes the production cost, customer outage cost
and emission pollution cost. Literature [7], considering green
house gas emission level of distributed generation, presented
a novel environmental economic dispatch model for smart
microgrid. However, none of the above models consider the
real-time electricity price of the microgrid system.

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speed does not slow down.

Unschedulable Microsource
II. E NERGY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM MODEL
Wind Turbines Photovoltaic A. Economic Dispatch objective function
In an economic dispatch period (T=24hours), under the
Energy premise of satisfying the user’s load power supply require-
management
system Electricity
Grid Load
ments, the whole operation cost of the grid-connected mi-
crogrid is taken as the economic dispatch objective function,
Schedulable Microsource which consists of five parts: Cbattery BES cost, CDE DE cost,
CDG DG cost, Ce emission cost, Cgrid electricity exchange

Energy Storage
with grid cost, as shown in equation (1).
Diesel Engine Battery
Ctotal = Cbattery + CDE + CDG + Ce + Cgrid (1)
Fig. 1: Structure of energy management system
Where Ctotal represents the overall operation costs of the
microgrid in a period.
Literature [9] proposed a memory-based genetic algorith-

T
m for minimization of the energy production cost by optimally Cbattery = Co PM (t) (2)
sharing the power generation task in the smart grid framework. t=1

Literature [10] proposed a mixed integer programming method Where Co represents maintenance cost of battery charge and
to optimizing microgrid. The algorithm itself is rather com- discharge, and PM represents battery charge and discharge
plicated, so it needs to construct the branch strategy and the power.
method of finding the lower bound. Literature [3] proposed 
T
CDE = (Ff uel (t) + Fmain (t) + Fss (t)) (3)
an adaptive Lagrangian relaxation based-algorithm to solve i=1
multi-area power generation dispatch in competitive markets.

T
However, it is easy to oscillate in the iterative process of CDER = Ki Pi (t) (4)
i=1
the algorithm. Literature [5] used particle swarm algorithm
Where Ki represents operation and maintenance coefficient of
(PSO) to solve a multi-objective economic dispatching model
DER unit i, and Pi represents power of DER unit i.
for microgrid at the hour-level commitment of distributed

n
generators and the output power of distributed generators. Ce = PDE (t) × Ei × λ i (5)
However, when solving multi-dimensional nonlinear objective i=1

functions, PSO is prone to be in local minimum easily.
In this paper, an energy management strategy based on
real-time electricity price is proposed for microgrid. It can
adjust the power output and operation sequence of the power
generation units according to the fluctuation of the electricity
price. Thereby the overall cost of the microgrid is reduced.
On the other hand, in order to accelerate the convergence and
avoid falling into the local optimal solution when solving the
multi-objective optimization problem, an optimal individual
based-genetic algorithm is proposed. By replacing the worst
chromosomes in the offspring with the chromosomes of the
best individual in the older generation, the proposed algorithm
can improve the ability to search for the global optimal
solution. At the same time, it can ensure that the convergence
Ei represents the penalty cost of the i type of exhaust gas
generated by DE, and λi is the emission coefficient of the i
type of exhaust gas.
B. Constraints
In order to meet the actual operation of the microgrid and
decrease microgrid operating cost, the constraints of different
micro-sources are considered, which can be summarized as
follows:
1) System power balance constraint
Assumed that the value of DG and electric load is known.
Pload (t) + Pgrid (t) = Ppv (t) + PDER (t) + PBES (t) (6)
Where Pmd (t) and Pmc (t) represents discharge power and
charge power of BES.

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Implement energy
2) Battery energy storage constraint management strategy

Constraining the capacity of the battery can extend the PV/WT power
generation
life of the battery. Then, the constraint of battery capacity is
given Greater than Equal to Less than
load demand load demand load demand
Edown ≤ E(t) ≤ Eιpper (7)
The price of The price of
Battery
selling electricity selling electricity
3) DE constraints discharge
is expensive is cheap

DE power output, start-up and shut-up time need to be Sell more Sell less
Buy electricity
electricity to electricity to
from the grid
added constraints [12]. the grid the grid

Charge the
Pmin ≤ PDE (t) ≤ Pmax (8) Charge the
battery with a battery with
DE power
generation
small amount of more electricity
(Ton (t − 1) − Tu ) (U (t − 1) − U (t)) ≥ 0 (9) electricity

(Tof f (t − 1) − Td ) (U (t) − U (t − 1)) ≥ 0 (10) Fig. 2: energy management strategy

Where Ton and Tof f respectively indicate that the DE is con-

model has complex nonlinear constraints and multiple objec-
tinuously turned on and off. And Tu ,Td respectively indicate
tive functions. Therefore, OIGA is used to solve the problem.
the minimum continuous power on and off time required by
The OIGA flow is shown in Fig. 3.
DE. U is considered as start-up and shut-down state. 
4) Grid transmission power constraint Start

Individual
Pgridmin (t) ≤ Pgrid (t) ≤ Pgridmax (t) (11) initialization

Population
III. M ODEL SOLVING METHOD initialization

Calculating
A. Energy management strategy based on real-time electricity fitness values
price Select
Crossover
First of all, the output power of PV and WT is uncon- Mutation

Generating
trollable, so they are regarded as the highest priority power offspring
population
generation units. Moreover, BES is considered as the second
priority power generation unit. At last, if the amount of elec- Reach the
No
maximum number
tricity generated couldn’t meet the demand for electricity load, of evolutions

then choosing a DE to generate electricity or buy electricity Yes

from the grid. At 0:00 to 7:00, because of the low cost of End

purchasing electricity, the power-purchase strategy is adopted.
At 18:00 to 22:00, because of the increased load on the grid, a
power generation strategy combining power-purchase and DE
power generation is adopted. The energy management strategy
is shown in Fig. 2.
B. Improved genetic algorithm
As a global optimization algorithm, OIGA not only has
the characteristics of memory individual optimal solution and
strong global search convergence and robustness, but also
does not require complex mathematical expressions. It does
not require the objective function to be continuous, so it is
suitable for solving problems with high dimensionality and
complex and demanding constraints. The energy management
Fig. 3: OIGA flow chart
1) Individual initialization. This paper proposes a chro-
mosome coding method based on linear combination instead
of traditional binary coding method, linearly combine the
boundary constraints into the individual chromosomes, so
that the initial generated chromosomes meet the boundary
requirements. It is convenient to search in a large space,
omitting the complex encoding and decoding process improves
the efficiency of the operation. The linear combination coding
formula is as follows:
indi = boundi−low + (boundi−up − boundi−low ) · ri (12)
Where indi , ri respectively represents the chromosome of
individual i and linear combination coefficient, and gives the

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upper bound constraint of individual i. individual structure with the optimal fitness destroyed. But if
2) Initialize the population. A multi-parameter population the crossover probability is smaller, the search process will be
generation method is proposed, which integrates various pa- slow, and will not stagnate. Thus, linear crossover probabilities
rameters such as fitness value, chromosome, grid side interac- could avoid the above problems.
tion power and BES’s capacity. The population can intuitively 6) Mutation. Uniform mutation operator role and algebra
represent the specific value of each parameter, which is very is not directly related, so when the evolutionary algorithm to
suitable in the microgrid energy management system. The a certain algebra, due to lack of local search, it is difficult to
steps of population multi parameter generation are as follows: obtain benefits. Therefore, non-uniform variation can improve
Firstly, determining the dimension of each parame- accuracy and increase fine-tuning ability.
ter, the fitness value dimension is 1 ∗ N , that is m1 = 7) Generate a new generation of population and calculate
∗
(m11 , m12 , · · · , m1N ). Chromosome dimension is N L, that the population fitness of the offspring.
is ⎡ ⎤ 8) Elimination. The best chromosome in the progeny
a11 , a12 ··· a1L population replaces the worst chromosome in the father.
⎢ ⎥
⎢ a21 a22 ··· a2L ⎥
⎢ ⎥ 9) Termination. Evolution to the maximum value of the
m2 = ⎢ . .. .. ⎥ (13)
⎢ .. ··· ⎥
⎣ . . ⎦ offspring.
aN 1 aN 2 ··· aN L
IV. N UMERICAL SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS
The grid side interaction power dimension is N ∗ T , that is
⎡ ⎤ Firstly, selecting the load, PV and WT data of a certain
b11 , b12 · · · b1T area in Shandong Province. Secondly, combining the local
⎢ ⎥
⎢ b21 , b22 · · · b2T ⎥
⎢ ⎥ grid price standard to formulate the real-time price. Lastly,
m3 = ⎢ . .. .. ⎥ (14)
⎢ .. ··· ⎥
⎣ . . ⎦ an improved genetic algorithm is applied to simulate the grid-
bN 1 , bN 2 ··· bN T connected microgrid energy management system.

140
The energy storage battery capacity dimension is
⎡ ⎤ 120 PV
WT
Power output

d11 , d12 · · · d1T 100

⎢ ⎥ 80
⎢ d21 , d22 · · · d2T ⎥
⎢ ⎥ 60
m4 = ⎢ . .. .. ⎥ (15)
⎢ .. ··· . ⎥
40
⎣ . ⎦ 20
dN 1 dN 2 · · · dN T 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour
Secondly, Integration of the above parameters, that is Fig. 4: Power output of RES
pop=(para.1,m1,para.2,m2,para.3,m3,para.4,m4).

3) Calculate fitness values based on different power 120
110
generation strategies.
Load demand

100
4) Selection. Roulette method. The method is a kind of 90
replay random sampling method. The probability that each 80
70
individual enters the next generation is equal to the fitness of
60
the individual and the proportion of individual fitness and the 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour
whole population. In the process of rotating the roulette, it is Fig. 5: Power output of RES
possible to repeatedly select certain chromosome.
5) Cross. The selection of crossover probability is the key Fig. 6 shows that 11:00 to 13:00 and 19:00 to 22:00 is the
to the performance and behavior of genetic algorithm, which peak period of electrovalence, 8:00 to 10:00 and 14 to 18:00
directly affects the convergence of the algorithm. The greater is the normal period of electrovalence, 1:00 to 7:00 and 23:00
the crossover probability, the faster the new generation will to 24:00 is the low period of electrovalence.
produce. However, when the crossover probability is larger, As shown in Fig. 8, the output of DE is mainly concen-
the genetic model is more likely to be destroyed, making the trated in power consumption peaks at night.

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1.5 1.5
Buy 
Sell 30 1.5
1 1 DE
Price
Buy

Sell

Price
20 1

DE
0.5 0.5
10 0.5

0 0 0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour
Fig. 6: Real-time price (i) OIGA
 30 1.5
DE
50 2 Price

Price
20 1

DE
Grid

price
0 Grid 1 10 0.5
Price
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
-50 0 Hour
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour (ii) GA
(i) OIGA 30 1.5
50 2 DE
Price

Price
20 1

DE
Grid

price

0 Grid 1 10 0.5
Price
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
-50 0 Hour
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour (iii) YALMIP
(ii) GA
50 2 Fig. 8: Relationship between interactive power and electrova-
lence in power grid
Grid

price

0 Grid 1
Price

-50

0 40
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 Grid
30 ESB
Hour DE
Power output

(iii) YALMIP 20
10
Fig. 7: Relationship between output of DE and electrovalence 0
-10
-20
Fig. 9 reflects the power supply and demand balance of -30
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour
the microgrid system. During the time between 11:00 and (a) OIGA
40 Grid
14:00, the sum of output power of PV and WT is greater than ESB
30
DE
Power output

or equal to the load power consumption. Therefore, microgrid 20

10
would charge batteries and sell power to the grid. During the
0
time between 19:00 and 22:00, the sum of output power of -10
-20
PV and WT is little, and the interaction power of grid and the 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour
output of BES have reached the upper limit. Thus, the lack of (b) GA
40
ESBC
power can only be compensated by the output of DE. 30 ESBD
DE
Power output

20
As shown in Table I, three optimization algorithms are Grid
10
0
applied to calculate the operation cost of microgrid, and the
-10
simulation results demonstrate that OIGA is the best. -20
-30
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour
C ONCLUSION (c) YALMIP

In this paper, the mathematical model of energy manage- Fig. 9: Energy dispatch
ment system is built, and an energy management strategy is

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