Allocation of Distributed Energy Systems at District-Scale over Wide Areas for Sustainable Urban Planning with a MILP Model

An optimal allocation of centralized district-scale distributed energy resource (DER) systems with district heating and cooling network (DHCN) is studied. A generic mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is constructed to increase the system efficiency and decrease costs by reducing energy distribution losses and transportation costs in energy distribution network. Initial investment costs based on size and type (co/trigeneration) of the facility and demand-weighted transportation costs are minimized by the capacitated fixed charge facility location (FCFL) model. However, unlike the standard FCFL model, by adding the maximum coverage distance in the set covering problem, a new method has been proposed. Thus, its aim is to avoid assigning a demand point to a candidate facility from a point farther than the predetermined distance. That means that the weakness of disregarding the distance between supply and demand points in the FCFL problem is eliminated. Additionally, this model, in which the annual inputs are used, has a generic framework suitable to form infrastructure needs in consideration of distributed energy systems in the general planning level for sustainable urban planning. For this purpose, the applications of the model, both case study and tests, have been made over wide areas, with annual demand and capacity values. Consequently, a case study with different coverage distances has been conducted to see the effect of coverage distance on the model, and also test problems with different sizes have been carried out to demonstrate the capability of the proposed model.