This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRS.2017.2779042, IEEE
Transactions on Power Systems
1

Optimal Sizing of Energy Storage System in Active

Distribution Networks Using Fourier-Legendre Series
based State of Energy Function
Yue Xiang, Member, IEEE, Weichao Han, Jianglin Zhang, Junyong Liu, Member, IEEE, Yong Liu, Member, IEEE
 Fourier-Legendre series expansion is innovatively introduced
Abstract— A novel method for optimal sizing of energy storage to describe the SOE function in an approximately continuous
system (ESS) in active distribution networks (ADNs) using state of way from the common discrete inputs for planning, and
energy (SOE) function is proposed in this paper. The SOE of ESS improve the sizing accuracy of ESS with its optimal trajectory.
in an operational cycle is characterized by an approximately
continuous function based on Fourier-Legendre series expansion.
II. METHODOLOGY
Then the ESS capacity can be determined by the optimized SOE
function extreme. The effectiveness and advantage of the In the proposed methodology, it is assumed that the state
proposed method are verified by test cases. switch for charging or discharging of ESS is not too severe or
Index Terms— Fourier-Legendre series, energy storage system, fast, i.e., the profile is assumed to be smooth. Then the capacity
SOE function, active distribution network of ESS will be determined by its SOE E (t ) in a cycle, while
the continuous SOE curve is presented by the Legendre
I. INTRODUCTION
polynomials, which is obtained based on the optimal sizing

A S an essential resource to improve operational flexibility,

energy storage system (ESS) plays an important role in
active distribution networks (ADNs) [1]. The sizing of
model with discrete inputs. The detailed process is as follows.
A. The capacity of ESS
ESS had been investigated in several studies and a number of The relationship between SOE and the state of charge (SOC)
methods had been proposed [2-3]. Generally, typical operation can be formulated as:
scenarios were used for sizing, which was in the form of soc(t ) = E (t ) / Ebattery (1)
temporal discrete points as a planning or operational cycle, e.g.,
a typical day with T=24 discrete operational points when Δt where Ebattery indicates the capacity of ESS. According to low /
=1h [3]. The general process for calculating the capacity of ESS
upper constraints for SOC, i.e. socup , soclow , the capacity of
can be as follows: 1) either the charging/discharging power or
the state-of-energy (SOE) of ESS was used as the decision ESS should satisfy:
variable in the optimal formulation, 2) then the quantity of SOE Emax  Emin
Ebattery  (2)
at each time t in T was obtained by an optimization algorithm, socup  soclow
in which the maximum and minimum were used to determine
the capacity of ESS. where Emax , Emin are the maximum and minimum SOE,
The above method proved to be effective. However, the SOE respectively, which would be determined by E (t ) .
was presented by discrete points with Δt in the cycle, which
may not represent the real operation conditions. The minimum B. Fourier-Legendre series expansion of SOE function
or maximum SOE in the real operation may occur within Δt, Fourier-Legendre Series Theorem [4]: if the function f(x) in
not just at the discrete point. Thus, the planning based on [-1, 1] satisfy the Dirichlet Principle [4], then f(x) in [-1, 1] can
discrete inputs may not be able to meet the real capacity be expanded into a series of Legendre polynomials.
f ( x)   n  0 Cn Rn ( x)
demand. Besides, in the conventional optimization, T/Δt groups 
(3)
of inputs should be given completely, i.e., if some discrete input
2n  1 1
2 1
data are lost, the real operation state may not be fully presented. Cn  f ( x) Rn ( x)dx, n  0,1, 2 . (4)
In order to solve the problems above, in this letter, the
1 dn 2
Rn ( x) 
n
( x  1)n
n
(5)
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation 2 n! dx
Let x=cos0≤if f(cos) in [] satisfies the Dirichlet
of China (51377111), in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (YJ201654), and in part by the Open Research Subject of
Key Laboratory of Sichuan Power Electronics Energy-saving Technology and Principle, then Legendre polynomials can be obtained as:
f (cos  )   n  0 Cn Rn (cos  )
Devices (szjj2017-052). 
Yue Xiang, Junyong Liu are with Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065 (6)
China (e-mail: xiang@scu.edu.cn, liujy@scu.edu.cn). 2n  1 
2 0
Weichao Han is with State Grid Jinan Power Supply Company, Jinan Cn  f (cos  ) Rn (cos  )sin  d , n  0,1, 2 . (7)
250012 China (e-mail: scuhan@163.com).
Jianglin Zhang is with Chengdu University of Information Technology, Let SOE in the start and end are set consistent within a fixed
Chengdu 610225 China (e-mail: zhangjianglin@cuit.edu.cn). operating cycle, i.e. E (T )  E (0) . Then the SOE in the
Yong Liu is with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996 US
(yliu66@utk.edu). continuous function could be formulated:
Corresponding author: Yue Xiang, Weichao Han

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRS.2017.2779042, IEEE
Transactions on Power Systems
2

T
E (t )    (t ) Pe (t ) d t  E (0) (8)
0
where Pe (t ) is the charging or discharging power of ESS at
time t, and  (t ) represents the charging or discharging
efficiency corresponding to the state of Pe (t ) . According to
Fourier-Legendre Series Theorem, the function of SOE can be
expanded into a series of Legendre polynomials by letting
 =t / T :
t
E (t )   n  0 an Rn cos(  )

(9)
T
For example, 6-level Legendre expansion is formulated as: Fig. 1 SOE simulation result when T=24 and Δt=1h
t t t To further demonstrate the comparison effectiveness, let the
E (t )  a0 R0 cos(  )+a1 R1 cos(  )+ +a6 R6 cos(  ) (10)
T T T operational cycle is the same 1 day but with T=12 and Δt=2h
It should be noted the T/Δt setting should be larger than the (Case II) and T=48 and Δt=0.5h (Case III), the SOE profiles can
level number of the chosen Legendre polynomial in order to be seen in Fig. 2. It also shows the SOE continuous curve
guarantee an in Eq. (9) can be solved. covers almost all the SOE quantities at the corresponding
discrete points. However, the cap between top of the SOE
C. Optimal framework with discrete inputs
continuous curve and the top discrete point is reduced when
ESS acts an essential resource in the operation of ADNs with more discrete points are considered for planning while it is
high-penetration of distributed generations and loads. An increased with less operational discrete points considered.
optimal cost model for a distribution network in an operational
cycle is formulated:
min (Cbattery  Ch ) (11)
where Cbattery is the life loss cost of ESS in a cycle that
Cbattery =cpbattery Ebattery N / Nlife , cpbattery is the unit ESS cost
while N is the charging or discharging times in a cycle and
N life is the total life cycle times. C h is the power exchange
cost from the upper grid. The optimal model is with the
common power related constraints [5-6]. It should be noted
that, in the discrete modelling and optimization, the
(a) SOE in Case II
relationship between E (t ) and Pe (t ) are formulated as:
E (t )  E (t  1)+ (t ) Pe (t )t (12)
In detailed optimization, based on the proposed method, E (t )
and Pe (t ) will be replaced by Eq. (9), and an (n=0, 1…6) will
be obtained after the optimal cost is solved, which brings the
equivalent SOE function and the minimum required capacity of
ESS can be approximated by Eq. (2) thereafter.

III. CASE STUDY

To demonstrate the validity of the proposed method, the IEEE
33-bus test system is employed and 6-levle Legendre expansion
is adopted to describe the SOE function, in which an (n=0, 1…6)
will be solved by genetic algorithm. The main inputs can be
found in: https://github.com/eexxyy/ess/blob/master/case.pdf.
The operational cycle is set as one day. Let T=24 and Δt=1h
(Case I), the SOE results are shown in Fig. 1. The SOE curve
includes approximately all the 24 discrete operational points
while there is only a small gap between the top of the curve and
the discrete point when t=14. Thus the sizing result of ESS is
7.8 MW by the conventional discrete optimization method
compared with 8.2 MW by the proposed method.
(b) SOE in Case III
Fig. 2 SOE profile in Case II and Case III
The sizing results of the three cases are shown in Fig. 3. It can
be observed that the fewer the initial inputs (T/ t ) are, the
larger cap of the final capacity of ESS by the two methods
would be in different cases. With a shorter and shorter time
interval t , the sizing result produced by the conventional
method gets closer and closer to that of the proposed method.
However, the proposed method is able to produce a more
accurate result with more robustness to long time intervals and
missing input data.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRS.2017.2779042, IEEE
Transactions on Power Systems
3

Fig. 3 Sizing result comparison of the Case I~ Case III

IV. CONCLUSION
This letter proposed a novel method to size ESS in ADNs by
using SOE function. The Fourier-Legendre series expansion
method was introduced to characterize the SOE of ESS into an
approximately continuous formulation. The proposed method
can effectively reduce the possible error caused by the discrete
expression way of SOE in the sizing optimization, especially
when the initial planning data are insufficient.

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