An alternative optimal strategy for stochastic model predictive control of a residential battery energy management system with solar photovoltaic

Scenario-based stochastic model predictive control traditionally considers the optimal strategy to be the expectation of the optimal strategies across all scenarios. However, while the stochastic problem involving uncertainties can be substantiated by a large number of scenarios, the expectation of the respective optimal control strategies derived from all scenarios as the optimal control strategy to the problem is challenging to justify. We therefore propose a different approach in which we artfully have the optimization program find the common optimal strategy across all scenarios for the first prediction step at each sample time, which, if it exists, yields the true optimal strategy with greater confidence. We demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed formulation through a case study of a research villa in Borås, Sweden, that is equipped with a battery and a photovoltaic system. We compute a covariance matrix that contains time-dependent information of the data and use it to generate autocorrelated scenarios from the probabilistic forecasts that serve as the uncertain input to the energy management system. We justify the credibility of the optimal solution derived from the proposed formulation with compelling reasoning and quantitative results such as improved self-consumption of photovoltaic power.