Demand and price fluctuations effect on risk and profit of single and clustered microgrids during COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19′s widespread distribution is wreaking havoc on people's lives all over the world. This pandemic has also had a significant impact on energy consumption. Its influence can be seen in the power system's operation and the market as well. The power consumers' habits and demand curves have been changed at a breakneck pace. In this work, a one-year mixed-integer programming (MIP) problem has been developed to compare the power consumption between 2019 and 2020 in the United States as an example regarding the COVID-19 pandemic effect in order to better prepare for possible similar future events. 100% renewable single microgrids (SMGs) are studied using wind turbines and photovoltaics. Batteries are also employed since it is inevitable when the system uses renewables. Additionally, it is possible for the SMGs to trade power with the main grid as needed. The effect of the SMGs’ clustering to form the multi-microgrids (MMGs) is also considered. In order to investigate the risk of the system during the COVID-19 and formation of MMG, downside risk constraints are applied to the proposed model. Furthermore, a stylized short-run consumers demand model is proposed, using elasticity and assessed responses regarding the average household consumption for households during on-peak and off-peak periods. The simulation results show that COVID-19 generally reduces the demand, increases the profit of the system, and decreases the economic risk of the power system’s operation. Moreover, SMGs clustering to organize MMG dramatically enhances the profit of the system as well as improves the risk level of the system.