Thesis

Proposal Master Energy

Academic year 20142015

Nr.: 69

Title NL: Integratie van lange termijn waterkracht stockage

and korte termijn unit commitment optimalisatie modellen
Title EN: Integration of longterm hydro storage and short
term unit commitment optimization models
Promoter: Prof. W. Dhaeseleer
Contact person: Kenneth Bruninx
Description:
In present-day and future power systems, hydro storage is and will be a key element to
maintain the balance between demand and supply for electrical power. Due to the largescale integration of renewables in the system, the planning of these units has drastically
changed as the seasonal patterns of residual demand are changing.
To study power system planning, modelers typically use so-called unit commitment models.
These models allow scheduling a given set of power plants as such that the demand in the
system is met at minimal cost (e.g. [1]). However, as the optimization period considered in
the model increases, these models become increasingly expensive to solve. Therefore unit
commitment models are typically solved day-by-day or week-by-week. These relatively short
time periods are in direct conflict with the long-term horizon used in planning of hydro
storage.
Therefore, the scheduling of a hydro power plant is usually done in different steps. Typically,
a first medium term planning model is used to fix the monthly or yearly production of the
hydro plant. This is then used as an input in short term optimization models such as unit
commitment models. A typical approach to integrate long-term optimization results in shortterm models is the use of so-called water values [2,3]. In this master thesis, the goal is to
- study this integration of these long and short-term optimization models;
- to develop a model to estimate these water values, taking various sources of
uncertainty into account;
- apply this methodology to a case study.

References
[1]
K. Van Den Bergh, K. Bruninx, E. Delarue, and W. Dhaeseleer, A Mixed-Integer
Linear Formulation of the Unit Commitment Problem, Working Paper. March, 2014.
Available
online:
http://www.mech.kuleuven.be/en/tme/research/energy_environment/PublicationsEnergyande
nvironment/Journalpapers
[2]
O.B. Fosso, A. Gjelsvik, A. Haugstad, B. Mo and I. Wangensteen, Generation
scheduling in a deregulated system. The Norwegian case, IEEE Transactions on Power
Systems, Vol. 14, no. 1, February 1999.
[3]
H. Abgottspon, G. Andersson. Approach of integrating ancillary services into a
medium-term hydro optimization, XII SYMPOSIUM OF SPECIALISTS IN ELECTRIC
OPERATIONAL AND EXPANSION PLANNING, May 2012, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Number of students: 1

1or2

This Master Thesis is suitable for: not suitable for EIT KIC
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