H. Shayeghi - Energy Management Research Centre, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran
M. Alilou - Department of Electrical Engineering, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

In the last years, microgrids have been introduced for better managing the overall power network. The two-way communication between supplier and consumer sides of a smart microgrid causes to better apply the demand side management methods to this type of system. For this reason, the multi-objective demand side management of a smart microgrid is investigated in this study. The economic and environmental indices of the microgrid are considered as the primary objective functions of the proposed demand side management method. The load variations of the microgrid are improved based on the applied demand response program. The operator of the microgrid can provide the demand of the system using a wind turbine, photovoltaic panel, diesel generator, micro turbine, fuel cell, energy storage system and the upstream network. The stochastic behavior of renewable units is also considered to evaluate the proposed method in a more realistic condition. The combination of the multi-objective ant lion optimization algorithm and the analytical hierarchy process method is utilized to solve the demand side management problem. Numerical results, which are obtained from evaluating the proposed method in a sample microgrid, demonstrate the high efficiency of the proposed demand side management method in improving the economic and environmental indices of the microgrid.

Analytical hierarchy process, Demand side management, Distributed generation, Energy storage system, Multi-objective optimization