Load Dispatch Control of Electric Power Systems Based on Equipment Health

The proposed GOALI research generalizes the notion of life extending control of a single generating unit to load control to several generating units interconnected on a common grid. This research introduces a novel concept of Life Extending Load Dispatch System (LELDS) that is characterized by: A two-tier structure for load scheduling and life extension of individual generating units over the grid; Load dispatching and unit commitment based on health monitoring, conducted at the upper level; Localized robust life extending control of individual generating units conducted at the lower level. The objective of this research is to investigate feasibility and viability of the proposed Life Extending Load Dispatch System (LELDS) over a conventional Load Dispatch System (LDS) that does not explicitly address the issue of equipment health (i.e., structural durability) of power plants. As unit reliability has become one of the most dominant economic factors in the deregulated environment, market pricing and penalties of energy supplied or lost often far outweigh the economics of transmission loss considerations or fine tuning of the generation levels. The LELDS will include the requirements of several dynamic and steady state energy services that are important to the regulation and control of grid as a whole. In the present environment of electricity deregulation, revenue and economic penalties are assigned to each of the grid energy control services thereby elevating their impact on the generating units and utility companies in contrast to the previous regulated environment. From this perspective, potential benefits of the proposed LELDS include: increased power system reliability and lower electricity generation cost, reduced maintenance, and increased availability of the generating units to satisfy energy market transactions as well as fluctuating native load on the grid. An additional feature of the proposed research is exchange of real-time information among the LELDS and generating units for remote health monitoring, diagnostics, and maintenance. Feasibility of these concepts will be validated on a testbed that will simulate a power system grid along with pertinent electromechanical and thermal-hydraulic dynamics of individual generating units.