Constraints of Economic operation of power system

The economic power system operation needs to satisfy the following

types of constraints.
(1) Equality constraints
The sum of real-power generation of all the various units must always
be equal to the total real-power demand on the system.

(2) Inequality constraints

These constraints are considered in an economic power system
operation
due to the physical and operational limitations of the units and
components.
The inequality constraints are classified as:
(a) According to the nature
According to nature, the inequality constraints are classified further
into the following constraints:
i. Hard-type constraints: These constraints are definite and specific in
nature. No flexibility will take place in violating these types of
constraints. e.g.,: The range of tapping of an on-load tap-changing
transformer.
ii. Soft-type constraints: These constraints have some flexibility with
them in violating.e.g.,: Magnitudes of node voltages and the phase
angle between them.Some penalties are introduced for the violations
of these types of constraints.
(b) According to power system parameters
According to power system parameters, inequality constraints are
classified further into the following categories.
i. Output power constraints: Each generating unit should not operate
above its rating or below some minimum generation. This minimum
value of real-power generation is determined from the technical
feasibility. PGi(min) ≤ PGi ≤ PGi(max)(2.3a) Similarly, the limits
may also have to be considered over the range of reactive-power
capabilities of the generator unit requiring that: QGi(min) ≤ QGi ≤
QGi(max) for i = 1, 2, 3, …, n (2.3b) and the constraint P2Gi + Q2Gi
≤ (S irated)2 must be satisfied, where Si is the rating of the generating
unit for limiting the overheating of stator.
ii. Voltage magnitude and phase-angle constraints: For maintaining
better voltage profile and limiting overloading’s, it is essential that the
bus voltage magnitudes and phase angles at various buses should vary
within the limits. These can be illustrated by imposing the inequality
constraints on bus voltage magnitudes and their phase angles. Vi
(min) ≤ Vi ≤ Vi (max) for i = 1, 2, …, n
δij (min) ≤ δij ≤ δij (max) for i = 1, 2, …, n
where j = 1, 2, …, m, j ≠ i, n is the number of units, and m the number
of loads connected to each unit.
iii. Dynamic constraints: These constants may consider when fast
changes in generation are required for picking up the shedding down
or increasing of load demand. These constraints are of the form:

iv. Spare capacity constraints: These constraints are required to meet

the following criteria:
a. Errors in load prediction.
b. The unexpected and fast changes in load demand.
c. Unplanned loss of scheduled generation, i.e., the forced outages of
one or more units on the system. The total power generation at any
time must be more than the total load demand and system losses by an
amount not less than a specified minimum spare capacity (PSP)i.e.,
PG ≥ (PD + PL) + PSP where PG is the total power generation, PD +
PL is the total load demand and system losses, and PSP is the
specified minimum spare power.

v. Branch transfer capacity constraints: Thermal considerations may

require that the transmission lines be subjected to branch transfer
capacity constraints:
Si (min) ≤ Sbi ≤ Si (max) for i = 1, 2, …, nb
where nb is the number of branches and Sbi the i th branch transfer
capacity in MVA.
vi. Transformer tap position/settings constraints: The tap positions
(or) settings of a transformer (T) must lie within the available range:
T(min) ≤ T ≤ T(max) For an autotransformer, the tap setting
constraints are: 0 ≤ T ≤ 1
where the minimum tap setting is zero and the maximum tap setting is
1. For a 2-winding transformer, tap setting constraints are 0 ≤ T ≤ K,
where K is the transformation (turns) ratio. For a phase-shifting
transformer, the constraints are of the type: θi (min) ≤ θi ≤ θi (max)
where θi is the phase shift obtained from the i th transformer
vii. Transmission line constraints: The active and reactive power
flowing through the transmission line is limited by the thermal
capability of the circuit. TCi ≤ TCi (max) where TCi (max) is the
maximum loading capacity of the i th line.
viii. Security constraints: Power system security and power flows
between certain important buses are also considered for the solution
of an optimization problem.
If the system is operating satisfactorily, there is an outage that may be
scheduled or forced, but some of the constraints are naturally violated.
It may be mentioned that consideration of each and every possible
branch for an outage will not be a feasible proportion. When a large
system is under study, the network security is maintained such that
computation is to be made with the outage of one branch at one time
and then the computation of a group of branches or units at another
time. So, the optimization problem was stated earlier as minimizing
the cost function (C) given by Equation (2.1), which is subjected to
the equality and inequality constraint (Equations (2.2) and (2.3)).
Optimum scheduling of hydro thermal system.
The primary objective of the short term hydrothermal
scheduling problem is to determine the optimal generation schedule
of the thermal and hydro units to minimize the total operation cost of
the system over the scheduling time horizon (typically one day)
subjected to a variety of thermal and hydraulic constraints.
The earlier sections have dealt with the problem of optimal
scheduling of a power system with thermal plants only. Optimal
operating policy in this case can be completely determined at any
instant without reference to operation at other times. This, indeed, is
the static optimization problem. Operation of a system having both
hydro and thermal plants is, however, far more complex as hydro
plants have negligible operating cost, but are required to operate
under constraints of water available for hydro generation in a given
period of time. The problem thus belongs to the realm of dynamic
optimization. The problem of minimizing the operating cost of a
Hydrothermal Processes can be viewed as one of minimizing the fuel
cost of thermal plants under the constraint of water availability
(storage and inflow) for hydro generation over a given period of
operation.

Theory of Hydrothermal Processes:

For the sake of simplicity and understanding, the problem formulation
and solution technique are illustrated through a simplified
Hydrothermal Processes of Fig. 7.12. This Hydrothermal System
consists of one hydro and one thermal plant supplying power to a
centralized load and is referred to as a Fundamental Hydrothermal
System. Optimization will be carried out with real power generation
as control variable, with transmission loss accounted for by the loss
formula of Eq. (7.26).
Mathematical Formulation:
For a certain period of operation T (one year, one month or one day,
depending upon the requirement), it is assumed that (i) storage of
hydro reservoir at the beginning and the end of the period are
specified, and (ii) water inflow to reservoir (after accounting for
irrigation use) and load demand on the system are known as functions
of time with complete certainty (deterministic case). The problem is
to determine q(t), the water discharge (rate) so as to minimize the cost
of thermal generation.

under the following constraints:

(i) Meeting the load demand

This is called the power balance equation.

(ii) Water availability

where J(t) is the water inflow (rate), X′(t) water storage, and X′(0),
X′(T) are specified water storages at the beginning and at the end of
the optimization interval.
(iii) The hydro generation PGH(t) is a function of hydro discharge
and water storage (or head), i.e.
The problem can be handled conveniently by discretization. The
optimization interval T is subdivided into M subintervals each of time
length ΔT. Over each subinterval it is assumed that all the variables
remain fixed in value. The problem is now posed as

under the following constraints:

(i) Power balance equation

Where
 PmGT = thermal generation in the mth interval
 PmGH = hydro generation in the mth interval
 PmL = transmission loss in the mth interval

(ii) Water continuity equation

where
 X′m = water storage at the end of the mth interval
 Jm = water inflow (rate) in the mth interval
 qm = water discharge (rate) in the mth interval
The above equation can be written as
where Xm = X/m/ΔT = storage in discharge units.
In Eqs. (7.73), X° and XM are the specified storage’s at the beginning
and end of the optimization interval.
(iii) Hydro generation in any subinterval can be expressed as

where
 ho = 9.81 x 10-3h′o
 ho = basic water head ( head corresponding to dead storage)
 e = water head correction factor to account for head variation
with storage
 ρ = non-effective discharge (water discharge needed to run
hydro generator at no load).
In the above problem formulation, it is convenient to choose water
discharges in all subintervals except one as independent variables,
while hydro generations, thermal generations and water storages in all
subintervals are treated as dependent variables. The fact, that water
discharge in one of the subintervals is a dependent variable, is shown
below:
Adding Eq. (7.73) for m = 1, 2, …, M leads to the following equation,
known as water availability equation

Because of this equation, only (M – 1) qs can be specified

independently and the remaining one can then be determined from
this equation and is, therefore, a dependent variable. For convenience,
q1 is chosen as a dependent variable, for which we can write

Solution Technique:
The problem is solved here using non-linear programming technique
in conjunction with the first order gradient method. The Lagrangian ζ
is formulated by augmenting the cost function of Eq. (7.71) with
equality constraints of Eqs. (7.72)— (7.74) through Lagrange
multipliers (dual variables) λm1, λm2 and λm3. Thus,

The dual variables are obtained by equating to zero the partial

derivatives of the Lagrangian with respect to the dependent variables
yielding the following equations

and using Eq. (7.73) in Eq. (7.77), we get

The dual variables for any subinterval may be obtained as follows:
 Obtain λm1 from Eq. (7.78).
 Obtain λm3 from Eq. (7.79).
 Obtain λ12 from Eq. (7.81) and other values of λm2(m ≠ 1) from
Eq. (7.80).
The gradient vector is given by the partial derivatives of the
Lagrangian with respect to the independent variables. Thus

For optimality the gradient vector should be zero if there are no

inequality constraints on the control variables.
SHORT TERM HYDRO THERMAL SCHEDULING PROBLEM
Today’s modern power system consists of a large number of
thermal and hydro plants connected at various load centers through
a transmission network. The main objective of operation for such
a power system is to generate and transmit power to meet the system
load demand and losses at minimum fuel cost. The study of the
problem for optimum scheduling of power generation at various
plants in a power system is of paramount importance, particularly
where the hydro sources are scares and high cost of thermal
generation has to be relied upon to meet the power demand and
losses. The short-term hydrothermal scheduling is of great
importance to electric utility system, which involves the hour by-
hour scheduling of all generations in system in order to achieve
minimum the fuel cost for a known scheduling horizon. The
scheduling objective is to plan the usage of water available for
hydroelectric generators in order to reduce the production cost of
the thermal plants with a set of starting conditions such as
reservoir volume. Basically the integrated operation of the hydro-
thermal system is split into two separate, long-range and short-range
problems. The planning period is of one year for long-range
problem and short-term hydrothermal scheduling problem is
concerned with optimization over a time horizon of an hour, a day or
a week. The paper focuses on a short term hydro thermal
scheduling problem. Some authors have given an analytical
approach while other has followed the evolutionary methods. Several
analytical and evolutionary methods given by various researchers
are reviewed. The genetic algorithm, simulated annealing,
evolutionary programming fuzzy system, particle swarm
optimization, bacterial foraging algorithm, ant colony, Fuzzy
system, mixed integer programming and lagrangian method have
come to be the most widely used tools for solving a short term
hydro thermal scheduling problem. The proposed work aim to present
the overview and key issues of previously considered methods for
short term hydro thermal scheduling problem. No attempt is made
here to prove the effectiveness of the solution technique applied by
researchers for hydro thermal scheduling problem
Short term scheduling power system is a subject that has been
extensively studied because of its significant economic impact.
Hydro thermal scheduling is required in order to find the optimum
allocation of hydro energy so that the annual operating cost of a
mixed hydro thermal system is minimized. Over the last decade the
hydrothermal scheduling problem has been the subject of
considerable discussion in the power literature. The available
methods differ in the system modeling assumptions and the
solution method. In June 1980 S. Soares, C. Lyra, and H.Tavares [1]
applied decomposition and coordination technique for solving
HTSP. The formulations used in this paper also take care of
stochastic load demand. Demand. The method has been applied to
a hydro thermal system consisting of 4 hydro and two thermal plants
over a period with 12 stages. The method purposed by the
author has desirable feature of matching a precise formulation of
the problem with the ability to deal large scale coupled power
system. The authors believe that improvement in computation time
can be achieved with better individual value for Lagrange multiplier
and amelioration in programming. In February 1986 H.
Habibollahzadeh, and J. A. Bbubenko [2] give decomposition
technique for solving HTSP. Author developed a realistic model for
short term operation planning for large scale hydro thermal power
system. Benders' method is employed
to decompose the problem with respect to integer and continuous
variables.The master problem of this method contains only integer
variables and considers the unit commitment of thermal plants.
The sub problem includes only continuous variables and considers
the economic dispatch problem. The benders method used by
author has slightly higher efficiency than the lagrangian relaxation
method. The method is applied on Swedish power system
consisting of 30 hydro and 20 thermal plants. The total time taken
for computation is 4 minutes. In August 1991 R.N Wu, T.H Lee and
E.F Hill [3] proposed a duality decomposition method which was
based on basic interchange scheduling strategy. The study shows that
with the proposed method up to 1.6 % of saving were achieved and
2.9 % extra hydro energy yield. When the interchange averaged
for 8 hours’ time block the purposed method generates 2.2 % more of
hydro energy and overall production cost reduced to 1.1 %. The
computational time of algorithm is appealing and method is
suitable for practical use. The system taken for the study purpose
consists of three interchange contracts, five hydraulic cascaded hydro
plants and seventeen thermal units In January 1994 K.P. Wong and
Y.W.Wong [4] gave a Simulated Annealing method for solving
HTSP. The author has included the reservoir volume constraints and
the operation limits of the thermal and hydro units in the algorithm.
The employment of the random and Gaussian perturbation techniques
in the candidate solution generation process, as well as the constraint
relaxation method, enhances the performance of the algorithm.
The algorithm developed has been implemented using the C
programming language and the software system is run on a
PC/486 computer with an i860 co-processor. The test example shows
that the algorithm has good performance and it has the ability to
determine the global optimum solution. The computation speed of
the new algorithm can be improved by further developing the
algorithm to exploit parallelism. In January 1995 S. soares and T.
Ohishi [5]performed case study via hybrid simulation-optimization
approach. The author simulated the hydraulic system on the
hourly basis, showing the water release from the hydro reservoirs.
The release decision is totally based on the DC power flow. The
reservoir release targets are enforced through a duality penalty
approach which shadow costs to the hydro generation. The author
used special nonlinear capacitated network with linear side
constraints. Hybrid approach is applied to the 440kv companhia
energetica do estado de sao in Southeast Interconnected Brazilian
Power System. The system comprises of 15 buses and 21 branches,
four hydro electric plants with three in the same cascade, and 11 load
buses. The code has been implemented using Fortran 77 in a SUN
sparc station IPX. The average time for script 2, starting with h =
0, is 20 sec. considering this initialization and a load variation of
5%, the average CPU time is reduced to 7s. The tests showed the
influence of specific constraints such as reservoir storage limits, and
Limits on discharge variation. In 1995 another research was done by
O. Nilson and D. Sjelvgren [6] proposing a mixed integer
programming method for solving the problem. The author
decomposed the problem in to several sub problems and some
coupling constraints were relaxed. In order to get smooth result
the method includes startup cost for hydro aggregates. The main
mathematical techniques applied in the problem were Lagrange
relaxation, dynamic programming and network programming.
Author applied the technique on Swedish power system. The duality
gap came out to be less than 1 for 25 iteration and computation time
was about 5-7 minutes for 25 iterations on a Macintosh Quadra
700. The main advantage of the method is that it only looks for
points having better efficiency, thus reducing the computational time
and quality of results In march 1996 Md. S. Salam, K.M nor, and A.
R. Hhamdan [7] give a comprehensive algorithm for solving
HTSP. In this approach Lagrangian relaxation based hydrothermal
co-ordination algorithm is integrated into an expert system. Author
decomposed the scheduling problem to scheduling of individual
unit by relaxing demand and reserve requirements using
lagrangian multipliers. Dynamic programming has been used for
solving thermal sub problems without discretising generation levels.
The program is written in C language and expert system was
developed in SICStus prolog. Programs were run on a SUN SPARC
station 10 a practically tested on system using the data of the
generating units and system demands of 1989 and 1993. The
1989 test system consisted of 32 thermal and 12 hydro generating
units and 1993 system had 36 thermal generating units, of which 11
were gas turbine units and 12 hydro units. The results show that
proposed approach produces feasible within a reasonable time. In
October 1998 Keun Yu, C S Chou, and Y H Song, [8] applied the ant
colony search algorithm for solving the problem. In paper Ant
Colony Search Algorithm, a set of co-operating agents called ants
cooperate to find good solution to short-term Generation
scheduling problem of thermal units. The effectiveness of the
proposed scheme has been demonstrated on the daily scheduling
problem of a model power system and the results are compared
with the outcomes obtained by a conventional, hybrid DP type of
scheduling method. The study results indicate that, in terms of
economy, the proposed ACSAis applicable to the short-term
generation scheduling problem. In 15 February 1999 P.K Hota,
R.Chakarbatai, P.K Chattopadhayay [9] gave an evolutionary
programming technique for solving hydro thermal scheduling
problem. Author has represented the thermal generator units by an
equivalent unit and the
generator load power balance equations and total water discharge
equation have been subsumed into the system model. The algorithm
has been applied toa hydro plant an equivalent thermal unit and
the schedule horizon is of 3 days and there are six 12-h intervals.
The results demonstrate that the EP technique provides a cheaper
schedule when compared with the SA and gradient search techniques
and is more reliable and powerful in searching for the global optimal
solution even than the SA algorithm.