PE453

Power System Operation and control

Lecture5: Characteristic of power
generating units & ELD
Dr. Shahid Alam
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Electrical Engineering
Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering
Sciences and Technology
s.alam@giki.edu.pk
Retail Electricity Prices

1
Power System Economic Operation

2
Power System Economic Operation

3
Economic Load Dispatch (ELD)
Who should generate how much?

4
Thermal vs. Other Generation

5
Block Diagram of Thermal Unit

6
Thermal generator Cost Curves

7
Input-output (I/O) characteristic
• The I/O curve plots fuel input (in MBtu/hr) versus net
MW output.

8
 Fuel-cost Curve
• The fuel-cost curve is the I/O curve multiplied by fuel cost.
• A typical cost for coal is $ 1.70/MBtu.

9
Net Heat-rate Curve
• Plots the average number of MBtu/hr of fuel input needed
per MW of output.
• Heat-rate curve is the I/O curve divided by MW.

Best heat-rate for most efficient

coal units is around 9.0

10
Incremental (Marginal) cost Curve
• Plots the incremental $/MWh as a function of MW.
• Found by differentiating the cost curve.

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Mathematical Formulation of Costs
• Generator cost curves are usually not smooth.
However the curves can usually be adequately
approximated using piece-wise smooth, functions.
• Two approximations predominate:
– quadratic or cubic functions
– piecewise linear functions
• We'll assume a quadratic approximation:

Ci ( PGi )  i  i PGi   i PGi

2
$/hr (fuel-cost)
dCi ( PGi )
ICi ( PGi )   i  2 i PGi $/MWh
dPGi

12