TY - GEN
T1 - Impact of unit commitment constraints on generation expansion planning with renewables
AU - Palmintier, Bryan
AU - Webster, Mort
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Growing use of renewables pushes thermal generators against operating constraints - e.g. ramping, minimum output, and operating reserves - that are traditionally ignored in expansion planning models. We show how including such unit-commitment-derived details can significantly change energy production and optimal capacity mix. We introduce a method for efficiently combining unit commitment and generation expansion planning into a single mixed-integer optimization model. Our formulation groups generators into categories allowing integer commitment states from zero to the installed capacity. This formulation scales well, runs much faster (e.g. 5000x) than individual plant binary decisions, and makes the combined model computationally tractable for large systems (hundreds of generators) at hourly time resolutions (8760 hours) using modern solvers on a personal computer. We show that ignoring these constraints during planning can result in a sub-optimal capacity mix with significantly higher operating costs (17%) and carbon emissions (39%) and/or the inability to meet emissions targets.
AB - Growing use of renewables pushes thermal generators against operating constraints - e.g. ramping, minimum output, and operating reserves - that are traditionally ignored in expansion planning models. We show how including such unit-commitment-derived details can significantly change energy production and optimal capacity mix. We introduce a method for efficiently combining unit commitment and generation expansion planning into a single mixed-integer optimization model. Our formulation groups generators into categories allowing integer commitment states from zero to the installed capacity. This formulation scales well, runs much faster (e.g. 5000x) than individual plant binary decisions, and makes the combined model computationally tractable for large systems (hundreds of generators) at hourly time resolutions (8760 hours) using modern solvers on a personal computer. We show that ignoring these constraints during planning can result in a sub-optimal capacity mix with significantly higher operating costs (17%) and carbon emissions (39%) and/or the inability to meet emissions targets.
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U2 - 10.1109/PES.2011.6038963
DO - 10.1109/PES.2011.6038963
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:82855177769
SN - 9781457710018
T3 - IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting
BT - 2011 IEEE PES General Meeting
T2 - 2011 IEEE PES General Meeting: The Electrification of Transportation and the Grid of the Future
Y2 - 24 July 2011 through 28 July 2011
ER -