UNIT – II

UNIT COMMITMENT
UNIT COMMITMENT - INTRODUCTION

Ø The life style of a modern man follows regular habits and hence the present society also follows
regularly repeated cycles or pattern in daily life.

Ø Therefore, the consumption of electrical energy also follows a predictable daily, weekly and
seasonal pattern.

Ø There are periods of high power consumption as well as low power consumption.

Ø It is therefore possible to commit the generating units from the available capacity into service to
meet the demand.

Ø The previous discussions all deal with the computational aspects for allocating load to a plant in
the most economical manner.

Ø For a given combination of plants the determination of optimal combination of plants for operation
at any one time is also desired for carrying out the aforesaid task.
Ø The plant commitment and unit ordering schedules extend the period of optimization from a few
minutes to several hours.
Ø From daily schedules weekly patterns can be developed.

Ø Likewise, monthly, seasonal and annual schedules can be prepared taking into consideration the
repetitive nature of the load demand and seasonal variations.

Ø Unit commitment schedules are thus required for economically committing the units in plants to
service with the time at which individual units should be taken out from or returned to service.

1.Constraints In Unit Commitment

Ø Many constraints can be placed on the unit commitment problem. The list presented here is by no
means exhaustive.

Ø Each individual power system, power pool, reliability council, and so forth, may impose different
rules on the scheduling of units, depending on the generation makeup, load-curve characteristics, and
such.

2. Spinning Reserve

Ø Spinning reserve is the term used to describe the total amount of generation available from all
units synchronized (i.e., spinning) on the system, minus the present load and losses being supplied.

Ø Spinning reserve must be carried so that the loss of one or more units does not cause too far a
drop in system frequency.

Ø Quite simply, if one unit is lost, there must be ample reserve on the other units to make up for the
loss in a specified time period.

Ø Spinning reserve must be allocated to obey certain rules, usually set by regional reliability
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councils (in the United States) that specify how the reserve is to be allocated to various units.

Ø Typical rules specify that reserve must be a given percentage of forecasted peak demand, or that
reserve must be capable of making up the loss of the most heavily loaded unit in a given period of
time.

Ø Others calculate reserve requirements as a function of the probability of not having sufficient
generation to meet the load.

Ø Not only must the reserve be sufficient to make up for a generation-unit failure, but the reserves
must be allocated among fast-responding units and slow-responding units.

Ø This allows the automatic generation control system to restore frequency and interchange quickly
in the event of a generating-unit outage.

Ø Beyond spinning reserve, the unit commitment problem may involve various classes of

―scheduled reserves‖ or ―off-line‖ reserves.

Ø These include quick-start diesel or gas-turbine units as well as most hydro-units and pumped-
storage hydro-units that can be brought on-line, synchronized, and brought up to full capacity
quickly.

Ø As such, these units can be ―counted‖ in the overall reserve assessment, as long as their time to
come up to full capacity is taken into account.

Ø Reserves, finally, must be spread around the power system to avoid transmission system
limitations (often called ―bottling‖ of reserves) and to allow various parts of the system to run as
―islands,‖ should they become electrically disconnected.

3. Thermal Unit Constraints

Ø Thermal units usually require a crew to operate them, especially when turned on and turned off.

Ø A thermal unit can undergo only gradual temperature changes, and this translates into a time
period of some hours required to bring the unit on-line.

Ø As a result of such restrictions in the operation of a thermal plant, various constraints arise, such
as:

1. Minimum up time: once the unit is running, it should not be turned off immediately

2. Minimum down time: once the unit is decommitted, there is a minimum time before it can be
recommitted.
Cc = cold-start cost (MBtu)

F = fuel cost
Cf= fixed cost (includes crew expense, maintenance expenses) (in R)

α = thermal time constant for the unit

Start-up cost when banking = Ct x t x F+Cf

Where

Ct = cost (MBtu/h) of maintaining unit at operating temperature

Finally, the capacity limits of thermal units may change frequently, due to maintenance or
unscheduled outages of various equipment in the plant; this must also be taken.

4. Other Constraints

1. Hydro-Constraints
Ø Unit commitment cannot be completely separated from the scheduling of hydro-units.

Ø In this text, we will assume that the hydrothermal scheduling (or ―coordination‖) problem can be
separated from the unit commitment problem.

Ø We, of course, cannot assert flatly that our treatment in this fashion will always result in an
optimal solution.

2. Must Run

Ø Some units are given a must-run status during certain times of the year for reason of voltage
support on the transmission network or for such purposes as supply of steam for uses outside the
steam plant itself.

3. Fuel Constraints

Ø We will treat the ―fuel scheduling‖ problem system in which some units have limited fuel, or else
have constraints that require them to burn a specified amount of fuel in a given time, presents a most

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challenging unit commitment problem.

UNIT COMMITMENT SOLUTION METHODS

The commitment problem can be very difficult. As a theoretical exercise, let us postulate the
following situation.

1. We must establish a loading pattern for M periods.

2. We have N units to commit and dispatch.

3. The M load levels and operating limits on the N units are such that any one unit can supply the
individual loads and that any combination of units can also supply the loads.

Next, assume we are going to establish the commitment by enumeration (brute force). The total
number of combinations we need to try each hour is,

C (N, 1) + C (N,2) + ... + C(N, N - 1) + C ( N , N ) = 2N – 1-----------------------------------(18)

Where C (N, j) is the combination of N items taken j at a time. That is,

For the total period of M intervals, the maximum number of possible combinations is (2N -
l)M, which can become a horrid number to think about.

For example, take a 24-h period (e.g., 24 one-hour intervals) and consider systems with 5, 10, 20 and
40 units.

Ø These very large numbers are the upper bounds for the number of enumerations required.

Ø Fortunately, the constraints on the units and the load-capacity relationships of typical utility
systems are such that we do not approach these large numbers.

Ø Nevertheless, the real practical barrier in the optimized unit commitment problem is the high
dimensionality of the possible solution space.
Ø The most talked-about techniques for the solution of the unit commitment problem are:

1. Priority-list schemes,
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2. Dynamic programming (DP),

3. Lagrange relation (LR).

1. Priority-List Method

Ø The simplest unit commitment solution method consists of creating a priority list of units.

Ø A simple shut-down rule or priority-list scheme could be obtained after an exhaustive

Ø The priority list could be obtained in a much simpler manner by noting the full- load average
production cost of each unit, where the full-load average production cost is simply the net heat rate at
full load multiplied by the fuel cost.

Priority List Method:

Priority list method is the simplest unit commitment solution which consists of creating a priority list
of units.

Full load average production cos t= Net heat rate at full load X Fuel cost

Assumptions:

1. No load cost is zero

2. Unit input-output characteristics are linear between zero output and full load

3. Start up costs are a fixed amount

4. Ignore minimum up time and minimum down time Steps to be followed

1. Determine the full load average production cost for each units

2. Form priority order based on average production cost

3. Commit number of units corresponding to the priority order

4. Alculate PG1, PG2 ………….PGN from economic dispatch problem for the feasible
combinations only.

5. For the load curve shown.

Assume load is dropping or decreasing, determine whether dropping the next unit will supply
generation & spinning reserve.

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If not, continue as it is

If yes, go to the next step

6. Determine the number of hours H, before the unit will be needed again.

7. Check H< minimum shut down time.

If not, go to the last step If yes, go to the next step

8. Calculate two costs

1. Sumof hourly production for the next H hours with the unit up

2. Recalculate the same for the unit down + start up cost for either cooling or banking

9. Repeat the procedure until the priority

list Merits:

1. No need to go for N combinations

2. Take only one constraint

3. Ignore the minimum up time & down time

4. Complication reduced

Demerits:

1. Start up cost are fixed amount

2. No load costs are not considered.

2. Dynamic-Programming Solution

Dynamic programming has many advantages over the enumeration scheme, the chief advantage being
a reduction in the dimensionality of the problem. Suppose we have found units in a system and any
combination of them could serve the (single) load. There would be a maximum of 24 - 1 = 15
combinations to test. However, if a strict priority order is imposed, there are only four combinations
to try:

Priority 1 unit

Priority 1 unit + Priority 2 unit

Priority 1 unit + Priority 2 unit + Priority 3 unit

Priority 1 unit + Priority 2 unit + Priority 3 unit + Priority 4 unit

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The imposition of a priority list arranged in order of the full-load averagecost rate would
result in a theoretically correct dispatch and commitment only if:

1. No load costs are zero.

2. Unit input-output characteristics are linear between zero output and full load.

3. There are no other restrictions.

4. Start-up costs are a fixed amount.

In the dynamic-programming approach that follows, we assume that:

1. A state consists of an array of units with specified units operating and

2. The start-up cost of a unit is independent of the time it has been off-line

3. There are no costs for shutting down a unit.

4. There is a strict priority order, and in each interval a specified minimum the rest off-line. (i.e., it is
a fixed amount).amount of capacity must be operating.

A feasible state is one in which the committed units can supply the required load and that meets the
minimum amount of capacity each period.

3. Forward DP Approach

Ø One could set up a dynamic-programming algorithm to run backward in time starting from the
final hour to be studied, back to the initial hour.

Ø Conversely, one could set up the algorithm to run forward in time from the initial hour to the final
hour.

Ø The forward approach has distinct advantages in solving generator unit commitment. For
example, if the start-up cost of a unit is a function of the time it has been off-line (i.e., its
temperature), then a forward dynamic-program approach is more suitable since the previous history
of the unit can be computed at each stage.

Ø There are other practical reasons for going forward.

Ø The initial conditions are easily specified and the computations can go forward in time as long as
required.

Ø A forward dynamic-programming algorithm is shown by the flowchart

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The recursive algorithm to compute the minimum cost in hour K with combination

Where
Fcost(K, I ) = least total cost to arrive at state ( K , I ) Pcost(KI, ) = production cost for state ( K ,I )
Scost(K - 1, L: K , I)= transition cost from state (K - 1, L) to state ( K , I )

State (K, 1) is the Zth combination in hour K. For the forward dynamic programming approach, we
define a strategy as the transition, or path, from one state at a given hour to a state at the next hour.

Note that two new variables, X and N, have been introduced in Figure. X = number of states to search
each period

N = number of strategies, or paths, to save at each step

These variables allow control of the computational effort (see below Figure).For complete
enumeration, the maximum number of the value of X or Nis 2n – 1

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