EE5512 Power System Operation and Control

Lecture 11 – Unit Commitment (Part B)

Spring 2022

Raheel Zafar
Department of Electrical Engineering
Lahore University of Management Sciences
raheel.zafar@lums.edu.pk

Outline
• Priority-list scheme [Shutdown rule]
• Unit commitment model – Objective function
• Unit commitment model – Constraints
• Unit commitment - Problem formulation
• Security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC)
• Unit commitment – Solution methods

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 Priority-List Scheme [Shutdown Rule]
• If the operation of the system is to be
optimized, units must be shutdown as the
load goes down and then recommitted as it
goes back up.
• Let the units and fuel costs be the same as
indicated in the next slide.
• To obtain a “shutdown rule”, simply use a
brute-force technique wherein all
combinations of units will be tried for each
load value taken in steps of 50 MW from 1200
to 500.
• Do enumeration for each load value from 500
MW to 1200 MW in steps of 50 MW.

Priority-List Scheme [Shutdown Rule] cont..

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 Priority-List Scheme [Shutdown Rule] cont..

• Our shutdown rule is quite simple:

• When load is above 1000 MW, run all three units.
• Between 1000 and 600 MW, run units 1 and 2.
• Below 600 MW, run only unit 1.
• So far, we have only obeyed one simple
constraint: Enough units will be committed to
supply the load.
• If this were all that was involved in the unit
commitment problem—that is, just meeting
the load—we could stop here and state that
the problem was “solved.”
• Unfortunately, other constraints and other
phenomena must be taken into account in
order to claim an optimum solution.

Unit Commitment Model – Objective Function

• The overall objective of the UC problem is to determine the startup and shutdown
schedule of every thermal generating unit in a power system.
• These generating units are indexed by 𝑔:

• The objective of UC problem is to minimize the total cost.

• The cost of producing electricity by thermal generating units can be expressed as:

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 Unit Commitment Model – Objective Function cont..

Fixed Cost
• Fixed cost may include crew expenses and maintenance expenses.
• The no-load or fixed cost can be computed as:

Variable Cost
• When a generating unit is producing electricity, it has a variable cost that can be
expressed as:

Unit Commitment Model – Objective Function cont..

• The fixed and variable costs constitute the running costs of generating units, i.e., the
costs incurred by producing electricity.
Startup Cost
• The startup cost is an exponential function of the time that a generating unit has been
offline.
• However, this cost can be simplified in most cases and considered as a constant.
• The startup cost is given by:

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 Unit Commitment Model – Objective Function cont..

• As the temperature and pressure of the thermal unit move slowly, a certain
amount of energy must be expended to bring the unit online.
• This energy does not result in any MW generation from the unit and is brought
into the unit commitment problem as a startup cost.
• The startup cost can vary from a maximum “cold-start” value to a much smaller
value if the unit was only turned off recently and is still relatively close to the
operating temperature.
• There are two approaches to treat a thermal unit during its down period:
• The first (called cooling) allows the unit’s boiler to cool down and then heat back
up to operating temperature in time for a scheduled turn on.
• The second (called banking) requires that sufficient energy be input to the boiler to
just maintain operating temperature.

Unit Commitment Model – Objective Function cont..

• The costs for the two can be compared so that, if possible, the best
approach (cooling or banking) can be chosen.

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 Unit Commitment Model – Objective Function cont..

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Unit Commitment Model – Objective Function cont..

Shutdown Cost
• If a plant is taken out of service during the scheduling period, it is necessary to consider
the shutdown cost.
• The shutdown cost can be expressed in a similar fashion as the start cost and thus:

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 Unit Commitment Model - Constraints
• Many constraints can be placed on the unit commitment problem.
• Each individual power system, power pool, reliability council, and so forth may impose
different rules on the scheduling of units, depending on the generation makeup, load-
curve charactristics, and such.
Demand Balance
• For security reasons, the net output power available online should be larger than the
actual demand by a pre-specified amount.

• 𝑊 is the binary decision variable denoting the status of the unit 𝑖 at hour 𝑘.
Generation Limits

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Unit Commitment Model – Constraints cont..

Ramp Rate Constraint

• From one time period to the next one, any thermal generating unit cannot increase its
power output above a maximum level, called the ramping up limit (RUP).

• Similarly, any thermal generating unit cannot decrease its power output above a limit,
which is called the ramping-down limit (RDN).

Thermal Unit Constraints

• Thermal units usually require a crew to operate them, especially when turned on and
turned off.
• A thermal unit can undergo only gradual temperature changes, and this translates into
a time period of some hours required to bring the unit online.

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 Unit Commitment Model – Constraints cont..

• Minimum Uptime
• Once the unit is running, it should not be turned off immediately.
• Let 𝑉 be the binary decision variable indicating no shutdown (0) and shutdown (1).
• Minimum uptime constraint states that if the unit is down at time 𝑘, then it cannot have started up
during the MUT previous period.

• Minimum Downtime
• Once the unit is decommitted, there is a minimum time before it can be recommitted.
• Let 𝑈 be the binary decision variable indicating no startup (0) and startup (1).

• Crew Constraint
• If a plant consists of two or more units, they cannot both be turned on at the same time since there
are not enough crew members to attend both nits while starting up.

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Unit Commitment Model – Constraints cont..

Must-Run Units
• Some units are given a must-run status during certain times of the year for various
reasons including:
• Voltage support on the transmission network.
• Supply of steam for uses outside the steam plant itself.
• Let 𝑊 be the binary decision variable denoting the status of the unit 𝑖 at hour 𝑘.

Fuel Constraints
• A system in which some units have limited fuel, or else have constraints that require
them to burn a specified amount of fuel in a given time, presents a most challenging
unit commitment problem.

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 Unit Commitment Model – Constraints cont..

Hydro-Constraints
• Unit commitment cannot be completely separated from the scheduling of hydro-units.
• For now, we assume that the hydrothermal scheduling (coordination) problem can be
separated from the unit commitment problem.
• We, of course, cannot assert flatly that our treatment in this fashion will always result
in an optimal solution.
• Operation of a system having both hydro and thermal plants is, however, far more
complex as hydro-plants have negligible operation costs, but are required to operate
under constraints of water available for hydro-generation in a given period of time.
• The problem of minimizing the operating cost of a hydro-thermal system can be viewed
as one of minimizing the fuel cost of thermal plants under the constraint of water
availability for hydro-generation over a given period of operation.

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Unit Commitment - Problem Formulation

A simplified version of the unit
commitment problem ignoring some
constraints (e.g., minimum uptime
and downtime) for the sake of clarity
results in the mixed-integer linear
program (MILP).

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 Security-Constrained Unit Commitment (SCUC)
• To operate the practical power system, it is necessary that the economic
dispatch within the unit commitment problem includes “security constraints”.
• Security constraints are additional constraints that force the dispatch of
generation so that:
• No transmission lines are overloaded (Line flow limits)
• No transmission lines are overloaded even when another line is lost (N-1 contingency)
• Security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC) problem is a unit commitment
problem with such “security constraints” included.
• It is commonplace today to use a security-constrained unit commitment
algorithm for all unit commitment calculations – especially for markets where
the geographic territory of the market may encompass a large set of
transmission lines.

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Unit Commitment – Solution Methods

• Typically, planning horizon is 24 hours covering the next operating day,
used for day-ahead scheduling in day-ahead market (called day-ahead unit
commitment).
• Inputs
• Load profiles of the next operating day
• Available units to commit and dispatch
• Network information and system requirements
• Model
• Mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem
• Outputs/Results
• Which intervals (hours) should which unit be ON (connected to the system)
• How much power should each unit produce during he in-service hours

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 Unit Commitment – Solution Methods cont..

• Complete Enumeration
• Returns optimal solution but extremely cumbersome to handle
• Number of enumerations when 𝑁 units to commit for 𝑀 periods is
(2 − 1) .
• For 10-unit system, 24 hours, this value is 1.73 × 10 .
• Priority-List Method
• Simplest unit commitment solution method but may not return optimal solution
• Dynamic Programming (DP)
• DP search technique usually creates the priority list same as the Priority-List
method and can provide a feasible solution very quickly
• DP technique can be problematic for large systems (> 30 units)

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Unit Commitment – Solution Methods cont..

• Lagrange Relaxation (LR)

• The disadvantages of DP technique disappears when LR technique is used
• Uses dual optimization procedure to compute the solution
• Provide an optimality gap to gauge solution quality
• May not provide a feasible solution in some cases
• Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP)
• Directly manipulates the integer variables
• Return solutions that are better than those reached using LR
• Evolutionary Algorithms
• Ignores the mathematical structure of UC problem by treating it as a black box
• Convex Programming
• State-of-the-art optimization approach that returns global optimal solution

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 Suggested Readings
• Wood | 4.1, 4.2, 4.3
• Conejo | 7.1, 7.2

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Thank you!

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