Optimizing the flexible design of hybrid renewable energy systems

Abstract Engineering systems often operate for a long period of time under varying conditions. The system should be designed based on the best available information at the time of the decision. Designers should also account for future uncertainties in the initial design of the system. The initial design may or may not change as the future evolves and conditions change. The goal of this study is to optimize the design of a hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) to deliver electricity under highly uncertain demand. This research explores designing the hybrid system while taking into account uncertainties over a long period of time (i.e., 20 years in this study). The objective is to minimize the expected discounted cost of the HRES during the next 20 years. A design solution may also be flexible, which means that the design can be adapted or modified in the future to meet new scenarios. This article incorporates flexibility or capacity expansion into engineering design under long-range uncertainty when the objective function is evaluated via a Monte Carlo simulation. The value of expanding capacity is measured by comparing the cost without capacity expansion and cost with capacity expansion.