Title: Evaluation of the Behavior of Various Dispatch Strategies for Expeditionary Hybrid Power Systems
Authors: Steven P. Miller, Edward M. House, Gregory W. Anderson
Abstract: Assuring optimal usage of power sources and energy storage in hybrid power system deployed in an expeditionary environment requires careful design of the dispatch strategy to ensure maximum fuel savings and long life of the hardware. The dispatch strategy is the overarching control logic that governs the usage of various resources, such as the decision of whether to store solar energy or use it immediately, whether to start the generators or shut them down, when to use the generators to charge the batteries or to discharge the batteries to load, etc. Ideally, the dispatch strategy is preprogrammed in the system’s firmware to allow fully autonomous operation, and if the dispatch strategy is not properly designed, not only will it fail to achieve the full fuel savings, but it can also result in behavior that causes accelerated wear on the generators and batteries. In this paper, we report on the behavior of several different types of dispatch strategies operating within models of hybrid power systems with various amounts of energy storage and photovoltaic panels and illustrate several potential pitfalls that can arise from naïve design choices.