Integration of Demand-Side Management Programs and Supply-Side Alternatives for Decentralized Energy Planning: An Analysis of Energy Import and Export Effects

Optimally selection of an appropriate mix of renewable sources for supplying electricity of remote areas has been always an important challenge for policy makers. Also, in recent years, the great advantages of Demand Side Management (DSM) programs such as postponing investments in construction of new plants and/or desirably modification of electricity consumption pattern has turned great attention of energy planners to these programs. Moreover, the issue of global warming has caused the need for reduction of human use of fossil fuels and switching to employing green energy sources. To address the mentioned concerns, in this paper, an integrated mathematical formulation for selecting the best mix of renewable energy technologies is proposed. In this study, DSM considered as a competitive option against supply-side alternatives for making energy planning decisions. Additionally, by considering real data from a case in Iran, the effects of considering energy import and export has been taken into account. To validate the model, for smaller-scaled test problems the model has been solved by Lingo 8.0 software while for solving larger instances of problems (real scale of case study) a novel genetic algorithm (GA) is devised. The numerical results indicate that DSM policies have made use of their maximum capacity and resulted in significant improvements, especially in terms of reducing consumption and suitably changing the load shape.