Sustainable and reliability based coalition forming model for smart multi-microgrid systems considering battery and water storage systems

This paper proposes a stochastic coalition-forming mechanism to determine the best structure for cooperation among microgrids in the distribution networks. In this model, the microgrids perform group decision-making to simultaneously minimize their operating cost and energy not supplied by cooperation with other neighbor microgrids. Each microgrid has different options for cooperation with other microgrids and each option is considered as a strategy. Each strategy imposes a consequence for microgrids, and the utility concept is provided to evaluate its consequence. Also, the proposed model considers the uncertainty of renewable energy resources to ensure the results in both isolated and grid-connected modes. This mechanism provides peer-to-peer energy trading among microgrids so that each microgrid transacts its surplus electricity to other cooperator microgrids when needed. In addition to renewable energy sources, controllable resources, and energy storage systems, each microgrid is integrated with the destination unit and water storage tank to supply the required freshwater for the customers. The proposed model is tested on the general case study, and the simulation results are compared with the non-cooperative framework. The results show that the proposed coalition-forming model reduces the energy not supplied by 301.63 kWh and 146.89 kWh, in the islanded and grid-connected modes, respectively.