EE5512 Power System Operation and Control

Lecture 5 – Economic Dispatch of Thermal Units (Part A)

Spring 2022

Raheel Zafar
Department of Electrical Engineering
Lahore University of Management Sciences
[email protected]

Outline
• Characteristics of steam units
• Heat rate
• Input-output curve
• Incremental curve
• Net heat rate curve
• Cost function
• Optimization problem in standard form
• Economic dispatch problem

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 Characteristics of Steam Units
• Fundamental to the economic
operating problem is the set of input-
output characteristics of a thermal
power generating unit.
• A typical steam turbine unit may
require 2-6% of the gross output of the
unit for the auxiliary power
Boiler:
requirements necessary to drive boiler Chemical Energy  Thermal Energy
feed pumps, fans, condenser Turbine:
circulating power pumps etc. Thermal Energy  Mechanical Energy
• In defining the unit characteristics, we Generator:
will consider gross input vs net output. Mechanical Energy  Electrical Energy

Heat Rate
• Heat rate is the heat energy needed to produce one unit of electricity.
• This term is commonly used in power stations to indicate the plant efficiency.
• Heat rate is the inverse of the generation efficiency:

• Typically expressed in MBtu/MWh or Btu/kWh.

• British thermal unit (Btu) is a unit of heat.
• It is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one
pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit.
• Low heat rate is the desirable characteristic.

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 Heat Rate cont..

• Example: If the heat rate of a power plant is 12,500 Btu/kWh then

• Heat content is in MBtu/ton (or MBtu/bbl).

• Fuel cost is in $/ton (or $/bbl).
• The cost to generate electricity can be measured in $/MWh.
• Electricity cost = (Heat rate) * (Fuel cost)/(Heat content of fuel)
• Example: Assume the heat rate of a coal power plant is 15,000 Btu/kWh
(i.e., 15 Mbtu/MWh), and the coal price is $40/ton and coal heat content
is 25 MBtu/ton. The cost of electricity is 24 $/MWh.

Input-Output Curve
• Input-output curve defines the total heat
energy (MBtu) or total fuel cost ($) required
to produce P units (MW) of power for one
hour.
• The input to the unit may be either in terms
of heat energy requirements (MBtu/h) or in
terms of total cost per hour ($/h).
• The output is normally the net electrical
output of the unit.
• Figure shows the input-output characteristic
of a steam unit in idealized form as it is
presented as a smooth, convex curve.
• This curve is referred to as total heat (or cost)
curve.

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 Input-Output Curve cont..

• Limits on the mechanical input power from prime mover (turbine) impose
constraints on active power generation.
• The minimum load (Pmin) at which a unit can operate is influenced more by
the steam generator than by the turbine.
• Minimum load limitations are generally caused by fuel combustion
stability and inherent steam generator design constraints.
• For example, most supercritical units cannot operate below 30% of design
capability.
• Pmax is the point when a generator starts to breakdown electrical
components or causes damage to electrical components.

Incremental Curve
• The incremental heat rate (or cost) curve
is the slope of the associated input-
output curve.
• Incremental (or marginal) cost curves are
frequently used to determine dispatch
levels for a collection of generators.
• The data shown on this curve are in
terms of Btu/kWh (or $/kWh) versus the
net power output of the unit in MW.
• It is converted to an incremental fuel
cost characteristic by multiplying the
incremental heat rate in Btu/kWh by the
equivalent fuel cost in terms of $/Btu.

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 Net Heat Rate Curve
• The unit (net) heat rate
characteristics shows the heat input
per kWh of output versus the MW
output of the unit.
• This curve is sometimes referred to
as average heat rate curve.
• When this curve is multiplied by
fuel cost, it becomes average cost
curve.
• For the average heat rate curve, it
has a minimum that is at Prated.
• This characteristic is H/P versus P.

Net Heat Rate Curve cont..

• Net heat rate curve is proportional to the reciprocal of the usual efficiency
characteristic developed for machinery.
• Typical conventional steam turbine units are between 30% and 35%
efficient, so their unit heat rates range between approximately 11,400
Btu/kWh and 9,800 Btu/kWh.
• A kWh has a thermal equivalent of approximately 3412 Btu.

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 Cost Function
• To model and determine the required fuel amount (heat rate) or the cost
for a unit to produce electric power at a given level, we can use:
• Look-up table method
• Linear approximation (a single straight line)
• Quadratic approximation
• Other higher order polynomial approximation
• Typical generation quadratic total cost function of the ith generating unit is
given by:

• where a2, a1, and a0 denote the coefficients.

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Cost Function cont..

• Advantage of look-up table:

• Accurate (exact) information if the actual output level can (exactly) match a data
point in the table

• Advantages of quadratic approximation:

• As compared to look-up table, explicit formula is available
• Quadratic function is a well behaved function
• It enables system-wide optimal (least cost) generation scheduling and dispatching

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 Optimization Problem in Standard Form

• The above notation describes the problem of finding an 𝑥 that minimizes 𝑓 (𝑥) among
all 𝑥 that satisfy the inequality constraints 𝑔 𝑥 ≤ 0, 𝑖 = 1, … . , 𝑚 and equality
constraints ℎ 𝑥 = 0, 𝑖 = 1, … . , 𝑝.
• 𝑥 ∈ R is the optimization variable.
• The function 𝑓 : R → 𝐑 is the objective function.
• The functions 𝑔 : R → 𝐑 are called the inequality constraint functions.
• The functions ℎ : R → 𝐑 are the equality constraint functions.
• If there are no constraints (i.e., 𝑚 = 𝑝 = 0) we say the above problem is unconstrained
optimization problem.

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Economic Dispatch Problem

• Economic dispatch (ED) problem is an optimization problem for resource
rescheduling.
• Typically, the objective of economic dispatch is to minimize the total cost.
• The constraints of economic dispatch problem include:
• Total generation = Total electrical load demand
• Upper and lower limits on the output of generator unit

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 Economic Dispatch Problem cont..

• Figure shows a simplified system configuration

with N thermal generating units connected to
a single busbar serving a received electrical
load Pload.
• Fi is the input to ith unit that represents the
cost function of the unit.
• Pi is the output of ith unit that denotes the
electrical power generated by that particular
unit.
• The total cost of the system is the sum of the
costs of each of the individual units.
• The essential constraint on the operation of
this system is that the sum of output powers
must equal the load demand.

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Economic Dispatch Problem cont..

• Let FT be the total cost for supplying the indicated load.

• The ED problem minimizes FT subject to the constraint that the sum of the
powers generated must equal the received load.
• Objective function:

• Equality constraint:

• This ED problem is a constrained optimization problem that may be attacked

formally using advanced calculus methods that involve the Lagrange function.
• For now, any transmission losses are neglected and operating limits are not
explicitly stated when formulating this problem.

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 Suggested Readings
• Wood | 1.6, 3.1, Appendix 3A

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Thank you!

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