A MILP Approach to Optimising Energy Storage in a Commercial Building
Tomás Barosa Santos, Filipe Tadeu Oliveira and Hermano Bernardo Centre for Power and Energy Systems, INESC TEC, Porto, Portugal 2026-02-15

Abstract

To achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, commercialbuildings have installed photovoltaic systems to reduce carbon emissions and operational costs. Nevertheless, PV generation does not always match the building’s energy demand profile, therefore storage systems are needed to store excess energy and supply it when necessary. This paper presents a Mixed Integer Linear Programming optimisation algorithm designed to schedule the operation of the electric storage system, aiming to minimise the building’s energy-related costs. An annual hourly simulation of the optimised system was performed to assess the cost reduction. To prevent excessive operation of the electric storage system, an approach to penalise low energy charging was studied, with results showing a significant increase in the system’s lifespan.

Key words: MILP, optimisation, renewable energy, energy storage system, commercial building.

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