A Robust Planning Method for Multi-Village Coupled Rural Micro-Energy Grid Based on Information Gap Decision Theory

The application of rural micro-energy grids is critical for improving the energy economy and supply quality in rural areas, yet existing planning methods suffer from two key limitations: (1) they focus on single-village scenarios, failing to exploit multi-village resource integration potential; and (2) they rarely address operational uncertainties, which pose risks to the feasibility of planning schemes. To fill these gaps, this study proposes a robust planning method for multi-village coupled rural micro-energy grids (MV-RMEGs). Based on the multi-energy coupling model within the MV-RMEG, a collaborative/autonomous operation framework is developed, which balances energy coupling efficiency and supply reliability. By integrating the information gap decision theory into the established deterministic model, multiple uncertainties in MV-RMEG can be handled without relying on probability statistics. Simulation results from a rural area in North China verify the method’s superiority: compared with single-village planning schemes, the proposed method reduces the power purchasing cost by 99.61%; in off-grid scenarios, it maintains a critical load shedding rate of 3.96%, which is 27.27% lower than the deterministic method. Moreover, the uncertainty handling process leads to a 10.25% reduction in the operating cost of the proposed method when dealing with DG output and load fluctuations.