Strategic Energy Management (SEM) in a micro grid with modern grid interactive electric vehicle

•System: Modelling of energy and storage systems for micro grid.•Target: Co-ordination of unitized regenerative fuel cell (URFC) and electric vehicle (EV).•Energy management strategies: Only URFC, URFC–EV charging, URFC-V2G with enabled.•Multi-objective approach: loss, cost minimization, maximization of stored energy.•Proposed Solution: Intelligent co-ordination of URFC and EV with V2G with most effective strategy. In this paper, strategic energy management in a micro grid is proposed incorporating two types of storage elements viz. unitised regenerative fuel cell (URFC) and electric vehicle (EV). Rather than a simple approach of optimizing micro grid operation to minimize line loss in the micro grid, this paper deals with multi objective optimization to minimize line loss, operational cost and maximize the value of stored energy of URFC and EV simultaneously. Apart from URFC, two operation strategies are proposed for EV enabling V2G operation to reduce overall system cost of operation. To address the complexity, non-linearity and multi dimensionality of the objective function, particle swarm optimization-a heuristic approach based solution methodology along with forward and back sweep algorithm based load flow solution technique is developed. Combined with particle swarm optimization (PSO), forward and backward sweep algorithm resolves the complexity and multi dimensionality of the load flow analysis and optimizes the operational cost of micro grid. The simulation results are presented and discussed which are promising with regard to reduction in line loss as well as cost of operation. Scheduling strategy of the micro grid with both URFC and EV enabling V2G operation presents a promising approach to minimize line loss and cost of operation.