An integrated approach to design site specific distributed electrical hubs combining optimization, multi-criterion assessment and decision making

An integrated approach is presented in this study to design electrical hubs combining optimization, multi-criterion assessment and decision making. Levelized Energy Cost (LEC), Initial Capital Cost (ICC), Grid Integration Level (GI), Levelized CO2 emission (LCO2), utilization of renewable energy, flexibility of the system, loss of load probability (LOLP) are considered as criteria used to assess the design. The novel approach consists of several steps. Pareto analysis is conducted initially using 2D Pareto fronts to reduce the dimensions of the optimization problem. Subsequently, Pareto multi objective optimization is conducted considering LEC, GI and ICC which were identified as the best set of objective functions to represent the design requirements. Next, fuzzy TOPSIS and level diagrams are used for multi-criterion decision making (MCDM) considering the set of criteria and the boundary matrix that represents the design requirements of the application. Pareto analysis shows that 5D optimization problem can be reduced to a 3D optimization problem when considering LEC, ICC and GI as the objective functions. Finally, results obtained from the case study shows that the novel method can be used design distributed energy systems considering a set of criteria which is beyond the reach of Pareto optimization with different priority levels.