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The traditional approach to design and deploy microgrids has been mainly focused on ac systems. DC microgrids, however, are gaining attention due to numerous advantages they provide over ac microgrids, such as removing the need for synchronization and frequency adjustment as well as appropriateness in supporting dc loads and distributed energy resources (DERs). Moreover, considering that both ac and dc DERs are utilized in microgrids, hybrid microgrids would provide viable and economic solutions as they can potentially eliminate the need for ac-to-dc or dc-to-ac conversions. This paper proposes a hybrid microgrid planning model with the objective of minimizing the microgrid total planning cost, which includes the DERs investment and operation costs, the converters investment cost, the cost of energy purchase from the utility, and the reliability cost. The solution of the proposed model determines the …