Techno-Economic Evaluation of a Multi-Energy Microgrid for Industrial Applications

This paper presents a techno-economic assessment of a multi-energy microgrid for industrial applications, integrating a photovoltaic plant with an electrothermal energy storage system. The system combines an electrochemical storage with a power-to-heat thermal storage to improve energy management and operational flexibility. We formulate a mixed-integer linear programming model to optimise the sizes of the photovoltaic plant, battery storage, and thermal storage. The objective is to minimise total lifetime costs across two industrial scenarios. Results show a consistent preference for thermal storage over batteries and a high deployment of photovoltaic panels. The first scenario focuses on using photovoltaic to cover the electric load and charge the thermal storage for thermal use, while the second enhances overall self-consumption.