Optimal Operation Strategy of a Hybrid PV-Battery

System under Grid Scheduled Blackouts

Mansour Alramlawi, Student Member, IEEE, Aouss Gabash, Member, IEEE, Pu Li
Department of Simulation and Optimal Processes
Institute of Automation and Systems Engineering
Ilmenau University of Technology
Ilmenau, Germany
mansour.alramlawi@tu-ilmenau.de, aouss.gabash@tu-ilmenau.de, pu.li@tu-ilmenau.de

Abstract—This paper addresses the optimal operation problem of
a hybrid PV-battery system under grid scheduled blackouts,
which is a usual case of discontinuous power supply in developing
countries. An adapted operational model for the system
considering new practical constraints is developed. Unlike
previous studies, new six operation modes considering a long-term
time horizon (i.e., one year with four seasons) are introduced. In
addition, a multi-objective genetic algorithm is used to find the
optimal seasonal operation mode schedule by minimizing,
simultaneously, the total cost of energy dispatch and the total loss
of power supply. To demonstrate the applicability of the
developed model, operation strategy and solution approach, a real
case study from Gaza city in Palestine is investigated. The results
clearly show that the optimal schedule leads to a significant
reduction of energy cost in comparison to one year fixed operation
mode.
Keywords—grid scheduled blackouts; operation modes; multi-
objective genetic algorithm; PV-battery system.
I. INTRODUCTION
Grid scheduled blackouts are still common problems in
many developing countries where the electrical generation and
distribution companies are unable to offer continuous and
stable power supply. This is because of different economical,
technical, environmental and political reasons [1-2].
Therefore, many studies have been recently made for
finding efficient solutions to develop reliable energy sources
for consumers in such situations. It was demonstrated, e.g., in
[3] that a diesel system is the most economical solution to
solve the problem of grid blackouts in Uganda. However, the
continuous decrease in the price of solar panels and the
expected increase in fuel prices would make solar-diesel
systems economically more efficient than only diesel systems.
In contrast to the conclusions in [3], the authors in [4]
concluded that the optimal design of a hybrid photovoltaic and
battery system (PV-battery) could be more beneficial than
solar-diesel systems for residential loads at areas suffering
from grid blackouts as in Lebanon and Palestine.
A power management system for planned and unplanned
grid blackouts is developed in [5] to minimize the operation
cost of a diesel-battery system works in India. Moreover, an
energy management strategy to reduce the fuel consumption of
a PV-diesel-battery system for non-residential loads in
Palestine is proposed in [6] considering a kind of planned grid
blackouts.
Recently, a switching grid connected PV-battery system
was studied in [7] to develop one day optimal operation
switching schedule for the system to minimize the energy cost.
However, the work doesn’t consider the problem of grid
blackouts and neglect some important system operation
constraints such as the maximum battery charging current.
In summary, design and operation of hybrid renewable
energy systems is an important issue in the area of power and
energy system, but a key limitation of the previous studies in
this area is that it is focusing only on off-grid or on-grid
systems [8-9], without considering Grid blackouts problems,
although it is a common case in many countries in the world.
Considering the above studies, the contributions of this paper
can be summarized as following:
• An adapted operational model for a hybrid PV-battery
system is developed for residential loads considering
more practical operational constraints.
• The problem of grid scheduled blackouts is handled in
the PV-battery system operation considering a long-
term horizon (i.e., one year with four seasons) for new
six operation modes instead of one year fixed mode.
• A multi-objective optimization problem is formulated
to find the optimal seasonal operation mode schedule
that minimize both of the total cost of energy dispatch
(TCED)and the total loss of power supply (TLPS).
The remaining of the paper is organized as follows. In
Section II, the modeling of the hybrid PV-Battery system is
given. Section III describes the optimization problem. In
Section IV, the proposed system operation modes are presented
while a case study is carried out in Section V. The results of
the paper are discussed in Section VI and the paper is
concluded in Section VII.
II. MODELING OF THE HYBRID PV-BATTERY SYSTEM
Fig. 1 illustrates the system under consideration. It consists
of a battery bank, a grid, a PV array, a load, a battery charger,
an inverter and 5 controllable switches (SW1-SW5). These
components are modeled below in detail.

This work is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service

(DAAD).

978-1-5386-3917-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

Authorized licensed use limited to: Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember. Downloaded on October 24,2022 at 16:25:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 or PV array), the constraint (7) should be held [7]. Moreover,
the constraints (8) should be held where the grid cannot supply
power to the load when the battery bank and/or the PV array
are supplying the load
u1 (t ) + u2 (t ) + u5 (t ) ≤ 1 (7)

­u3 (t ) + u4 (t ) ≤ 1
® (8)
¯u5 (t ) + u4 (t ) ≤ 1.

Fig. 1. Diagram of the new adapted model of the hybrid PV-Battery
system under grid scheduled blackouts.
A. Battery Bank
The battery bank is used to secure the required load power
because of the discontinuous power supply from the grid and
fluctuating generation from the PV array. The energy level in
the battery bank is represented by the so-called state of charge
(SOC). It is increasing with time due to the charging process
either form the grid or from the PV array, while it is decreasing
with time due to the discharging process to cover the required
load power Preq.l. These processes depend on the status of the
controllable switches, see Fig. 1. The change in the SOC of the
battery bank with time can be expressed by
Pdis (t )
SOC (t + Δt ) = SOC (t ) + ηch Pch (t )Δt − u5 (t )Δt
ηdis
where the charging power Pch(t) is calculated by
Pch (t ) = Pch.g (t )u1 (t ) + Pch.pv (t )u2 (t ) (2)
here, Pch.g(t) and Pch.pv(t) are the charging power from the grid
and the PV array, respectively, Șch and Șdis is the battery bank
charging and discharging efficiency, respectively, Pdis(t) is the
discharging power from the battery bank, while ux (x‫א‬1,…,5)
is the status of SWx, see Fig.1.
B. Grid
The available power from the grid Pav.g(t) at time t under
scheduled blackouts is formulated as follows
Pav.g (t ) = α g (t ) Pg.max (9)
here, Įg(t)‫{א‬1,0} represents the state of the grid, i.e., when
Įg(t)=1 the grid is available while Įg(t)=0 the grid is
unavailable, see Fig. 2. Pg.max is the maximum capability of the
grid. Note that the dispatched power from the grid Pdisp.g should
satisfy the following constraint
Pdisp.g (t ) ≤ Pav.g (t ). (10)
C. PV Array
The available power profile form the PV array Pav.pv, is taken
from an already installed PV generation unit in Gaza city, see
Fig. 3. Taking into account that the dispatched power from the
PV array Pdisp.pv, should satisfy the following constraint
(1)
Pdisp.pv (t ) ≤ Pav.pv (t ). (11)
D. Required Load Power
In this paper, the changing in load power profile in different
seasons is considered. The normalized daily profiles for the
Pav-g (pu)

To prevent battery bank over-charging, deep discharging

and overheating the following constraints should be satisfied
[10-11]
SOCmin ≤ SOC (t ) ≤ SOC max (3)
Fig. 2. Normalized hourly available power from the grid under scheduled
SOC min = (1 − DOD ) SOC max (4) blackouts in Gaza city for one week [13].

SOCmax = Vb.n Cb.n (5) 1

Pch ≤ γ ch.limVb.n Cb.n (6) 0.8

0.6
where SOCmin and SOCmax are the lower and upper limit of the
battery bank SOC, respectively. DOD is the battery bank depth 0.4

of discharge, Vb.n is the battery bank nominal voltage, Cb.n is the

0.2
battery nominal capacity (Ah), Ȗch.lim is a parameter for the
battery bank charging current limit, which is typically between 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 8760
0.1 and 0.2 to enable an optimum charge [12]. Time (Hour)

Since the battery bank cannot be charged and discharged at Fig. 3. Normalized hourly available power generation from a real PV
array in Gaza city for one year.
the same time and only be charged from one source (i.e., grid

Authorized licensed use limited to: Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember. Downloaded on October 24,2022 at 16:25:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 Table I. The available power sources priorities in the proposed
operation modes.
Priority Level First Priority Second Priority Third Priority
P-req-l (pu)

Output Source Priority

OSP1 PV Grid Battery
OSP2 Grid PV Battery
OSP3 PV Battery Grid
Charge Source Priority
CSP1 PV Grid
CSP2 Grid PV
Fig. 4. Normalized hourly required power for a residential load.

required load power in different seasons are taken from [14], as

shown in Fig. 4; these profiles will represent the required load
power Preq.l(t) at each time step.
III. DESCRIPTION OF THE OPTIMIZATION PROBLEM
The problem to be solved in this paper is a multi-objective
optimization problem aims to minimize both of the TLPS and
TCED, as given in (12).
­min TLPS + TCED
° m Fig. 5. Ilustration of the system operation modes.
® ­Equality constraints (1-2),(16) (12)
° s.t. ®
¯ ¯Inequality constraints (3),(6)-(8),(10-11) cover the load and two modes for battery bank charging source
Tmax
priority (CSP), as shown in Table I.
¦S failure (t )
These priority levels are combined together leading to six
TLPS = t =1
× 100 (13)
Tmax operation modes (i.e., M=6), see Fig.5, these modes managing
the power flow in the system by changing the status of the
Tmax controllable witches (see Fig. 1). The following list summarizes
TCED = Epr ¦ Pdisp.g (t ) (14) all investigated modes.
t =1

here, Tmax=8760 hours and Sfailure(t)=1 when Pav.l(t)<Preq.l(t) else
Sfailure(t)=0, while Epr is the cost of energy dispatch from the
grid Pdisp.g(t), and the available power to cover the required
load Pav.l(t), is represented here by
Pav.l (t ) = Pl.g (t )u4 (t ) + Pl.pv (t )u3 (t ) + Pdis (t )u5 (t ) (15)
here, Pl.g and Pl.pv are the consumed power by the load from the
grid and the PV, respectively. The available power should not
exceeds the required load power, thus the following constraint
must be satisfied
Pav.l (t ) = Preq.l (t ). (16)
Note that m is the optimization decision variable which
represents the system operation mode m = 1, 2,…, M. Here, M
stands for the total number of system operation modes.
IV. SYSTEM OPERATION MODES
In the previous studies [4] and [7], one fixed operation
mode is considered for the hybrid PV-Battery system, where
the Grid has the first priority to cover the load and to charge
the battery bank. In this work, new six operation modes are
proposed where the available sources have different priorities
to cover the load or to charge the battery bank. Based on that,
we introduce three modes for output source priority (OSP) to
• m = 1 Æ Run OSP1 & CSP1
• m = 2 Æ Run OSP1 & CSP2
• m = 3 Æ Run OSP2 & CSP1
• m = 4 Æ Run OSP2 & CSP2
• m = 5 Æ Run OSP3 & CSP1
• m = 6 Æ Run OSP3 & CSP2
V. A CASE STUDY
In this study, the above developed operational model for a
hybrid PV-Battery system is utilized to address the problem of
grid scheduled blackouts in Gaza city by taking one year
operation into account. According to the Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the electricity load
power in Gaza was estimated at 470 megawatts (MW), while
there is available electricity less than 45% of this required
power [13]. Because of that, periodic grid scheduled blackouts
of 8-12 hours across Gaza are currently in real practice, see
Fig. 2. The data of the system components are taken from a
real installed system in Gaza city and given in Table II.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember. Downloaded on October 24,2022 at 16:25:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 Table II. Type, size and capability of the system components.

Component Size/Capability
Grid 5 kW
Load 1.5 kW
Solar panel (250 Wp)×12= 3 kWp
Inverter 3 kVA
Battery charger 80 A
Battery bank (12 V-200 Ah)×4= 9.6 kWh

Table III. Parameters of the battery bank.

DOD Șch Șdis Vb.n Cb.n Ȗch.lim
Parameter
(%) (%) (%) (V) (Ah) (h-1) Fig. 6. All Pareto-optimal solutions for the system operation schedule.
Value 70 95 95 24 400 0.2
In autumn, the system is working according to the mode 2,
which gives the PV array the first priority to cover the load and
Table IV. Selected operation schedules from Pareto-optimal in Fig. 6. meanwhile the grid has the first priority to charge the battery
Operation Operation mode Results bank, as seen from time steps 173 to 181 in Figs.7 (a-b) and
schedule Win. Spr. Sum. Fall TLPS (%) TCED ($)
(d). In addition, it is clearly seen from Fig. 7 that the model is
able to satisfy all practical constraints introduced in the
Low TLPS 4 3 3 2 0.399 599.52 optimization problem.
Balanced 1 5 1 2 3.83 379.65
Low TCED 6 5 5 5 14.68 230.8 VII. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, an operational model for a hybrid PV-Battery
The chosen parameters of the battery bank are listed in Table system is developed as a solution for grid scheduled blackouts
III. Note that the hourly energy cost from the grid is taken as problems in developing countries. To improve the system
Epr = 0.15 $/kWh. performance, new six operation modes for the system are
VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS introduced. Furthermore, an optimal seasonal operation mode
schedule is developed by using a multi-objective genetic
The optimization problem formulated in section III is a algorithm, to minimize both of the total cost of energy dispatch
MILP solved using the multi-objective genetic function in
and total loss of power supply. The results demonstrate that the
MATLAB. Fig. 6, shows the optimization results where the
developed model and the solution approach can effectively find
circles denote the Pareto-optimal solutions for the seasonal
operation mode schedule. The horizontal axis represents the TLPS
an optimal schedule for the system working in a specific area,
while the vertical axis represents the TCED for one year. e.g., Gaza city that reduced the energy cost by 14% compared
to one year fixed operation mode.
Three schedules are selected from the marked areas with
ovals in Fig. 6 and described in Table IV. The first schedule is
a low TLPS schedule, which is taken from the oval A. The REFERENCES
second schedule is a balanced TLPS and TCED schedule, [1] A. Atputharajah and T. K. Saha, “Power system blackouts - literature
which is taken from the oval B. The third schedule is a low review,” 2009 International Conference on Industrial and Information
TCED schedule, which is taken from the oval C. Note that Systems (ICIIS), Sri Lanka, 2009, pp. 460-465.
running the system according to the fixed conventional [2] H. Seyedi and M. Sanaye-Pasand, “New centralised adaptive load-
shedding algorithms to mitigate power system blackouts,” in IET
operation mode (i.e., mode 4) leads to TLPS = 0.39% and Generation, Transmission & Distribution, vol.3, no.1, pp. 99-114,
TCED = 699.83$, but if the system is operated according to the January 2009.
low TLPS schedule (see Table IV), 14% of the energy cost can [3] P. M. Murphy, S. Twaha, and I. S. Murphy, “Analysis of the cost of
be saved by keeping the same value of TLPS. reliable electricity: A new method for analyzing grid connected solar,
diesel and hybrid distributed electricity systems considering an unreliable
To analyze the system performance in detail, two days from electric grid, with examples in Uganda,” Energy, vol. 66, pp. 523-534,
each season are selected while the system is working according March 2014.
to the low TLPS schedule, as shown in Fig. 7. In winter, the [4] J. Khoury, R. Mbayed, G. Salloum, and E. Monmasson, “Optimal sizing
of a residential PV-battery backup for an intermittent primary
system is working according to the mode 4, which gives the energy source under realistic constraints,” Energy and Buildings, vol.
grid the first priority to cover the load and charge the battery 105, pp. 206-216, Oct. 2015.
bank, as seen from time steps 13 to 21 in Figs.7 (a-b) and (d). [5] A. Hooshmand, B. Asghari and R. Sharma, “A power management
In spring and summer, the system is working according to the system for planned & unplanned grid electricity outages,” 2015 IEEE
mode 3, which gives the grid the first priority to cover the PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Latin America
demand and meanwhile the PV array has the first priority to (ISGTLATAM), Montevideo, 2015, pp. 382-386.
[6] M. Hijjo, F. Felgner and G. Frey, “Energy Management Scheme for
charge the battery bank, as seen from time steps 53 to 64 in BuildingsSubject to Planned Grid Outages,” Journal of Engineering
Figs.7 (a-b) and (d). Research & Technology .Vol. 3 Issue 3, p58-65. 8p, Sep 2016.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember. Downloaded on October 24,2022 at 16:25:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 Fig. 7. Arbitrary eight seasons days. (a) Available power (dashed-blue) and power dispatch (solid-red) from grid. (b) Required load
power (dashed-blue) and available power to cover load (solid-red). (c) Available power (dashed-blue) and power dispatch (solid-
red) from PV array. (d) Power charge of battery bank. (e) Power discharge of battery bank. (f) Battery bank state of charge.

[7] Z. Wu and X. Xia,“Optimal switching renewable energy system for
demand side management,” Solar Energy, vol. 114, pp. 278-288, ap.
2015.
[8] J. M. Gordon, “Optimal sizing of stand-alone photovoltaic solar power
systems,” Solar Cells, vol. 20, pp. 295-313, May 1987.
[9] E. Romero-Cadaval, G. Spagnuolo, L. G. Franquelo, C. A. Ramos-Paja,
T. Suntio and W. M. Xiao, “Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Generation
Plants: Components and Operation,” in IEEE Industrial Electronics
Magazine, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 6-20, Sept. 2013.
[10] A. Gabash and P. Li, “Active-reactive optimal power flow in distribution
networks with embedded generation and battery storage,” IEEE
Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 27, pp. 2026-2035, Nov. 2012.
[11] E. Koutroulis and K. Kalaitzakis, “Novel battery charging regulation
system for photovoltaic applications,” in IEE Proceedings - Electric
Power Applications, vol. 151, no. 2, pp. 191-197, Mar 2004.
[12] Xtender series user manual. [Online]. Available: http://www.studer-
innotec.com (Apr. 2017)
[13] The Humanitarian Impact of Gaza’s Electricity and Fuel Crisis.
[Online]. Available: https://www.ochaopt.org (Jan 2017).
[14] A. Gabash, M. E. Alkal, and P. Li, “Impact of allowed reverse active
power flow on planning PVs and BSSs in distribution networks
considering demand and EVs growth,” in Proc. 2013 IEEE PESS,
Bielefeld, Germany, pp. 11-16.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember. Downloaded on October 24,2022 at 16:25:42 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.