UNIT 4:
PART II: Unit Commitment
4.1. Introduction
The total load of the power system is not constant but varies throughout the day and reaches a
different peak value from one day to another. It follows a particular hourly load cycle over a day. There
will be different discrete load levels at each period as shown in Figure 4.1 below.
Fig 4.1: Discrete levels of system load of daily load cycle
Due to the above reason, it is not advisable to run all available units all the time, and it is necessary
to decide in advance which generators are to startup, when to connect them to the network, the sequence in
which the operating units should be shut down, and for how long. The computational procedure for making
such decisions is called unit commitment (UC), and a unit when scheduled for connection to the system is
said to be committed.
The problem of UC is nothing but to determine the units that should operate for a particular load. To
‘commit’ a generating unit is to ‘turn it on’, i.e., to bring it up to speed, synchronize it to the system, and
connect it, so that it can deliver power to the network.
4.2. Constraints in Unit Commitment
There are many constraints to be considered in solving the UC problem.
4.2.1. Spinning reserve
It is the term used to describe the total amount of generation available from all synchronized
units on the system minus the present load and losses being supplied. Here, the synchronized units
on the system may be named units spinning on the system.
Let PGsp be the spinning reserve, the power generation of the i th synchronized unit, PD
the total load on the system, and pL the total loss of the system:
The spinning reserve must be maintained so that the failure of one or more units does not
cause too far a drop in system frequency. Simply, if one unit fails, there must be an ample reserve on
the other units to make up for the loss in a specified time period.
The spinning reserve must be a given a percentage of forecasted peak load demand, or it must
be capable of taking up the loss of the most heavily loaded unit in a given period of time. It can also
be calculated as a function of the probability of not having sufficient generation to meet the load.
The reserves must be properly allocated among fast-responding units and slow-responding
units such that this allows the automatic generation control system to restore frequency and quickly
interchange the time of outage of a generating unit.
Beyond the spinning reserve, the UC problem may consider various classes of ‘scheduled
reserves’ or off-line reserves. These include quick-start diesel or gas-turbine units as well as most
hydro-units and pumped storage hydro-units that can be brought on-line, synchronized, and brought
upto maximum capacity quickly. As such, these units can be counted in the overall reserve
assessment as long as their time to come up to maximum capacity is taken into consideration.
Reserves should be spread well around the entire power system to avoid transmission system
limitations (often called ‘bottling’ of reserves) and to allow different parts of the system to run as
‘islands’, should they become electrically disconnected.
4.2.2. Thermal unit constraints
A thermal unit can undergo only gradual temperature changes and this translates into a time
period (of some hours) required to bring the unit on the line. Due to such limitations in the operation
of a thermal plant, the following constraints are to be considered.
Minimum up-time: During the minimum up-time, once the unit is operating (up state), it
should not be turned off immediately.
Minimum down-time: The minimum down-time is the minimum time during which the unit
is in ‘down’ state, i.e., once the unit is decommitted, there is a minimum time before it can be
recommitted.
Crew constraints: 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 to both units while starting up.
Start-up cost: In addition to the above constraints, because the temperature and the pressure
of the thermal unit must be moved slowly, a certain amount of energy must be expended to bring the
unit on-line and is brought into the UC problem as a start-up cost.
The start-up cost may vary from a maximum ‘cold-start’ value to a very small value if the
unit was only turned off recently, and it is still relatively close to the operating temperature.
Two approaches to treating a thermal unit during its ‘down’ state:
The first approach (cooling) allows the unit’s boiler to cool down and then heat back up to a
operating temperature in time for a scheduled turn-on.
The second approach (banking) requires that sufficient energy be input to the boiler to just
maintain the operating temperature.
Fig. 4.2: Time-dependent start-up costs
The best approach can be chosen by comparing the costs for the above two approaches.
Let CC be the cold-start cost (MBtu), C the fuel cost, CF the fixed cost (includes crew
expenses and maintainable expenses), α the thermal time constant for the unit, Ct the cost of
maintaining unit at operating temperature (MBtu/hr), and t the time the unit was cooled (hr).
Start-up cost when cooling = Cc (1 – e-t/α) C +
CF; Start-up cost when banking =Ct × t × C + CF.
Upto a certain number of hours, the cost of banking < cost of cooling is shown in Fig. 4.2.
The capacity limits of thermal units may change frequently due to maintenance or
unscheduled outages of various equipment in the plant and this must also be taken into consideration
in the UC problem.
4.2.3. Hydro-constraints
As pointed out already that the UC problem is of much importance for the scheduling of
thermal units, it is not the meaning of UC that cannot be completely separated from the scheduling of
a hydro-unit. The hydro-thermal scheduling will be explained as separated from the UC problem.
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.
4.2.4. Must run
It is necessary to give a must-run reorganization to some units of the plant during certain
events of the year, by which we yield the voltage support on the transmission network or for such
purpose as supply of steam for uses outside the steam plant itself.
4.2.5. 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 UC problem.
4.3. Unit Commitment—Solution Methods
The most important techniques for the solution of a UC problem are:
i. Priority-list method.
ii. Dynamic programming (DP) method.
iii. Lagrange’s relaxation (LR) method.
Now, the priority-list method and the DP method are discussed here.
4.3.1. Priority list method
It is the simplest unit commitment solution which consists of creating a priority list of units.
Full load average production cost= Net heat rate at full load X Fuel
Cost Assumptions:
1. No load cost is zero
2. Unit input-output characteristics are linear between zero output and full load
3. Startup costs are a fixed amount
4. Ignore minimum up time and minimum down time
Steps to be followed
1. Determine the full load average production cost for each units
2. Form priority order based on average production cost
3. Commit number of units corresponding to the priority order
4. Calculate PG1, PG2 ,PGN from economic dispatch problem for the feasible combinations only.
5. For the load curve shown, Assume load is dropping or decreasing, determine whether dropping
the next unit will supply generation & spinning reserve. If not, continue as it is If yes, go to the
next step.
6. Determine the number of hours H, before the unit will be needed again.
7. Check H< minimum shut down time. If not, go to the last step If yes, go to the next step.
8. Calculate two costs, one is the Sum of hourly production for the next H hours with the unit up
and second one is the Recalculate the same for the unit down + startup cost for either cooling or
banking.
9. Repeat the procedure until the priority.
Merits:
1. No need to go for N combinations
2. Take only one constraint
3. Ignore the minimum up time & down time
4. Complication reduced
Demerits:
1. Startup cost are fixed amount
2. No load costs are not considered
4.3.2. Dynamic-Programming Solution:
Dynamic programming has many advantages over the enumeration scheme, the chief
advantage being a reduction in the dimensionality of the problem. Suppose we have found units in a
system and any combination of them could serve the (single) load.
There would be a maximum of 24 - 1 = 23 combinations to test. However, if a strict priority
order is imposed, there are only four combinations to try:
● Priority 1 unit
● Priority 1 unit + Priority 2 unit
● Priority 1 unit + Priority 2 unit + Priority 3 unit
● Priority 1 unit + Priority 2 unit + Priority 3 unit + Priority 4 unit
The imposition of a priority list arranged in order of the full-load average cost rate would result in a
theoretically correct dispatch and commitment only if:
1. No load costs are zero.
2. Unit input-output characteristics are linear between zero output and full load.
3. There are no other restrictions.
4. Start-up costs are a fixed amount.
In the dynamic-programming approach that follows, we assume that:
1. A state consists of an array of units with specified units operating and
2. The start-up cost of a unit is independent of the time it has been off-line
3. There are no costs for shutting down a unit.
4. There is a strict priority order, and in each interval a specified minimum the rest off-line. (i.e., it
is a fixed amount).amount of capacity must be operating.
A feasible state is one in which the committed units can supply the required load and that meets the
minimum amount of capacity each period.
Forward DP Approach:
One could set up a dynamic-programming algorithm to run backward in time starting from the final
hour to be studied, back to the initial hour. Conversely, one could set up the algorithm to run
forward in time from the initial hour to the final hour. The forward approach has distinct advantages
in solving generator unit commitment. For example, if the start-up cost of a unit is a function of the
time it has been off-line (i.e., its temperature), then a forward dynamic-program approach is more
suitable since the previous history of the unit can be computed at each stage. There are other
practical reasons for going forward. The initial conditions are easily specified and the computations
can go forward in time as long as required. A forward dynamic-programming algorithm is shown
by the flowchart given in fig 4.4. The recursive algorithm to compute the minimum cost in hour K
with combination I is
Fcost(K,I)= min[Pcost(K,I)+Scost(K-1,L:K,I)+Fcost(K-1,L)]
Fcost(K, I ) = least total cost to arrive at state (K , I )
Pcost(KI, ) = production cost for state( K ,I )
Scost(K - 1, L: K , I)= transition cost from state (K - 1, L) to state(K , I )
State (K, 1) is the Zth combination in hour K. For the forward dynamic programming approach, we
define a strategy as the transition, or path, from one state at a given hour to a state at the next hour.
Note that two new variables, X and N, have been introduced
X = number of states to search each period
N = number of strategies, or paths, to save at each step.
These variables allow control of the computational effort (see below Figure 4.3). For n complete
enumeration, the maximum number of the value of X or N is 2n – 1.
Fig 4.3: Restricted search paths in DP algorithm with N = 3 and X = 5
Fig 4.4: Flow chart of Unit commitment via forward dynamic programming