Abstract
Tidal energy is one of the most abundant renewable energy sources. Due to its intermittent nature, the integration of tidal energy within a Microgrid (MG) requires appropriate energy management strategies. Some important considerations are tidal energy generation prediction, energy storage requirements, load profile and demand within the Microgrid, and energy pricing structures. This paper considers an MG scenario that includes a small scale tidal farm near Darwin in north of Australia. A tidal power prediction model is introduced using tidal current speed data. Then, for a fixed-size energy storage system (ESS), an optimal scheduling strategy is devised using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to achieve minimum operating costs in the MG. The work presented in this paper provides a framework for the planning of MGs that include tidal generation in their energy mix.