Chapter 2

POWER SYSTEM PLANNING AND OPERATIONAL

PROBLEMS
Power system planning
• Electric energy has to be delivered
instantaneously, no bulk storage is available
• Difference between demand and supply both
in shortage or excess has big economic
impact
• Power system planning is part of a general
problem– energy and economic development
planning
• Review of economic dispatch
– Determine the power that must be generated by
given n generators so that the total cost of
generation is minimum subject to the constraints
of power demand

Objective function, FT ,is

the total cost for supplying
the given load.
 Input-output characteristics of
generating units
• The fundamental of the economic dispatch
problem is the set of input - output
characteristic of a power - generating unit.

• To determine the total cost of generating a

given power, the input output characteristics
has to be known
 I/O characteristic - Thermal

Volume of
steam

Electric
power

Fuel
I/O … cont’d

a, b, c – coefficients
of the I/O Ch.

1/6 barrel of oil = 1 million BTU

1 BTU = 0.293071 watt hours
1 kWh = 3413 BTU
I-O characteristic – Hydroelectric unit

Electric
power
Volume of
water
 I-O characteristic … cont’d

• Input output is almost linear

W=aP+b
Calculation of Input - Output Characteristic Parameters

According to the principle of least squares, we

form the following objective function

Taking the first derivative of the above function J

with respect to each of the independent variables a,
b, and c and seting the derivatives equal to zero
will givethe necessary conditions for an extreme
value of the objective function
Calculation of Input - Output Characteristic Parameters
(Cont’d)

Solving the following equations coefficients a , b , and c can be obtained.

 Calculation of Input - Output Characteristic Parameters

Example: Determine equation of input-output

parameters using least square method and simulate
the input output curve.

• Determine the coefficients a, b, c for the thermal

generating unit

K=5
0.405
218.0
88.29
 Solution Methods of Economic
Dispatch
1. Equal incremental cost method
– The incremental cost of all generators should be
equal
2. Lagrangian method
– Use Lagrangian multiplier to reformulate the
equation
Equal incremental cost method

• Principle of Equal Incremental Rate

• Considering the inequality constraints

 Principle of Equal Incremental Rate

• Two generators connected to a single bus serving an

electrical load PD .
• I/O characteristics of two generating units
- F1(PG1) and F2(PG2 )
- F - sum of the fuel consumptions of
the two generating units.
The economic power dispatch problem of the system is
to minimize F
minF = F1 (PG1) + F2 (PG2)
PG1 + PG2 = PD
Principle of Equal Incremental Rate
• According to the principle of equal incremental rate ,
the total fuel consumption F will be minimal if the
incremental fuel rates of two generators are equal,
that is

Is the incremental fuel rate of generating unit i

 Equal incremental cost method
Considering the inequality constraints
• Problem statement
Minimize

Subject to
 Equal incremental …
• Solution: Compute

dF1 PG1  dF2 PG 2  dF3 PG 3 

 
dPG1 dPG 2 dPG 3
 Algorithm of equal incremental cost
1. Neglect the inequality equation and distribute the power
among the units according to the equal incremental
principle.
2. Check the power output limit for each unit
– If any limit is violated, use

3. Handle the violated units as a negative load

P′Dk = −PGk
4. Recompute the load dispatch with

OR
 Algorithm …
5. Go back to step (1) until all inequalities of units are
met.

Example: The I/O characteristics of two generating units is

given by the following equation. Total power demand is
500MW. The constraints are also given. Determine the
economic operation for these two units.
• Equations

• Constraints

• Solution: the equal incremental cost method gives us

• Checking the inequality constraints of generators, we can

see that the power output of unit 2 is violated
As per algorithm 2, 𝑃𝐺2 > 300𝑀𝑊, 𝑃𝐺2 = 300𝑀𝑊
∴ 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑃𝐺1 = 200𝑀𝑊
𝑃𝐺2 = 300𝑀𝑊
 Example 2- equal incremental cost

• For the following two generators, determine

the equal incremental cost operating point
when delivering 500MW

• solution
 2. Lagrangian Method

• Lagrangian Method for analytical solution

• Procedure In order to establish the
necessary conditions for an
– Form the Lagrangian equation extreme value of the
objective function, add the
constraint function to the
ℒ = 𝐹𝑇 + 𝜆𝜙 objective function after
the constraint function has
– Set the partial derivatives to zero been multiplied by an
undetermined multiplier.
𝜕ℒ 𝑑𝐹𝑖 (𝑃𝑖 )
= −𝜆 =0
𝜕𝑃𝑖 𝑑𝑃𝑖 Increamental cost rate of all units = λ
𝑑𝐹𝑖 (Necessary condition for the existance of
0= −𝜆
𝑑𝑃𝑖 Minimum cost operation)
 Necessary condition
• Incremental cost has to be equal to the
Lagrangian variable

𝑑𝐹𝑖
=𝜆 𝑁 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
𝑑𝑃𝑖

𝑃𝑖,𝑚𝑖𝑛 ≤ 𝑃𝑖 ≤ 𝑃𝑖,𝑚𝑎𝑥 2𝑁 𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠

𝑁
𝑖=1 𝑃𝑖 = 𝑃𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑 1 constraint
Lambda iteration method for Economic
Dispatch
(Page 39-41 and Example 3D)[1]

• It is a method used to compute the economic

power generation level of generators using
iteration
• Start with an initial guess of 
• Compute the power generation of each unit
• Compute the error (difference between
demand and the total generation)
• Repeat until the error is less than tolerance
value
Lambda iteration contd…
 Example
• Assume the cost function of thermal
generators is given by

• Where the parameters A, B, C and D are

• Fuel cost is 1.0$/MBtu for all

 Example contd…
• If the power limits are given by

• The load demand is 2500MW

• Solve the problem using the algorithm given
above and with starting value of =6.0
Note

• The value for λ on the second iteration is always set at

10% above or below the starting value depending on the
sign of the error; for the remaining iterations,
extrapolate (or interpolate) the two values of λ to get
closer to the desired value of total received power.

• With two solutions, you can extrapolate (or

interpolate) the two solutions to get closer to the
desired value of total received power.
 Participation Factor
• This assumes that the ED is solved by moving
from starting point for small change of power
∆𝜆𝑖 = ∆𝜆 ≅ 𝐹 ′′ 𝑖 (𝑖 0 )∆𝑃𝑖

∆𝜆
∆𝑃1 = ′′
𝐹 1

∆𝜆
∆𝑃2 =
𝐹 ′′ 2

∆𝜆
∆𝑃𝑁 =
𝐹 ′′ 𝑁
Relation between change in incremental cost and change in
power
 Participation factor ….
• The change in generation of each unit for a
change in demand
1
( ")
Δ𝑃𝑖 𝐹𝑖
=
Δ𝑃𝐷 1
𝑖
𝐹𝑖 "

The new value of generation is calculated using

Δ𝑃𝑖
𝑃𝑛𝑒𝑤𝑖 = 𝑃𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑖 + ∆𝑃𝐷𝐷 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑖 = 1, 2, … , 𝑛
Δ𝑃𝐷
Example
The economic operating point for three thermal units when delivering a total of
850 MW is given as:

2 $
𝐹1 = 561 + 7.92𝑃1 + 0.001562𝑃1
ℎ
𝐹2 = 310 + 7.85𝑃2 + 0.00194𝑃2 2 $/ℎ

𝐹3 = 78 + 7.97𝑃3 + 0.00482𝑃3 2 $/ℎ

Inequality costraints are:
150 ≤ 𝑃1 ≤ 600 𝑀𝑊
100 ≤ 𝑃2 ≤ 400 𝑀𝑊
50 ≤ 𝑃3 ≤ 200 𝑀𝑊
The optimal economic solution is found to be:
P1 = 393.2 MW
P2 = 334.6 MW
P3 = 122.2 MW
 Example (Cont’d)
Using the participation factor method calculate the dispatch for a total load
of 900 MW.
Solution
1
( ")
Since: Δ𝑃𝑖 𝐹 𝑖
= 1 ,
Δ𝑃𝐷 𝑖
𝐹𝑖 "
1
Δ𝑃1 (0.003124)
= = 0.47
Δ𝑃𝐷 1 1 1
0.003124 + 0.00388 + 0.00964
1
Δ𝑃2 (0.00388)
= = 0.38
Δ𝑃𝐷 1 1 1
+ +
0.003124 0.00388 0.00964
1
Δ𝑃3 (0.00964)
= = 0.15
Δ𝑃𝐷 1 1 1
+ +
0.003124 0.00388 0.00964
𝐴𝑛𝑑,

𝑃𝐷𝐷 = 900 − 850 = 50

The new value of generation is calculated using

Δ𝑃𝑖
𝑃𝑛𝑒𝑤𝑖 = 𝑃𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑖 + ∆𝑃𝐷 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑖 = 1, 2, … , 𝑛
Δ𝑃𝐷

Pnew_1 = 393.2+0.4750=416.7 MW

Pnew_2 = 334.6+0.3850=353.6 MW

Pnew_3 = 122.2 +0.1550=129.7 MW

Inequality constraint limit satisfied

Calculation using B matrix formula
(pp 111-123 [1] )
Assignment
Problems 4.3 & 4.5