Sizing of an island microgrid using demand side management strategies

In recent decades, the so-called microgrids have emerged worldwide as a solution to the lack of energy supply in remote rural areas characterized by a high consumption of fossil fuels. This article analyzes the islands of Old Providence and Santa Catalina, Colombia where the energy supply is delivered entirely by diesel generators without strategies to achieve a balance with demand. The main approach is to evaluate the implementation of an isolated microgrid using demand side management (DSM) strategies as a solution to diversify the energy matrix in remote rural areas. Five microgrid configuration cases combining diesel-dependent systems and hybrid systems based on renewable energy with different types of DSM strategies such as energy efficiency (EE) and demand response for load shifting (LS) are evaluated. HOMER software is used to optimize and select the most convenient microgrid configuration from an economic and environmental perspective. The results show that the introduction of DSM strategies facilitates the integration of renewable energies, leads to a reduction in associated costs, as well as in CO2 emissions, making the microgrid a technically, economically, and environmentally feasible option in isolated rural areas.