Community-Based Microgrid Planning and Operation for Fostering Energy Justice

Currently, many individuals with low-income house-holds (LIHs) face challenges in paying their energy bills, which constitute a significant portion of their earnings and result in a heavy energy burden for LIHs. Hence, it is essential to enhance energy justice for LIHs compared to individuals with high-income households (HIHs). This paper proposes a novel approach to address energy justice within communities by formulating a planning problem centered on a microgrid configuration comprising solar generation, battery energy storage systems, and a diesel generator. The primary objective is to maximize the power supply reliability and minimize the energy costs of both the LIHs and HIHs, particularly promoting energy justice for LIHs. A multi-objective community-based microgrid planning problem is formulated considering the energy justice metrics of reliability maximization and cost minimization. Energy justice concerns are addressed by optimizing the microgrid investments and operation by lowering the energy burden and improving the power supply reliability of LIHs.