MRCET CAMPUS DEPT.

OF EEE
UNIT-IV

UNIT COMMITMENT

Introduction:

The life style of a modern man follows regular habits and hence the present society also follows
regularly repeated cycles or pattern in daily life. Therefore, the consumption of electrical energy
also follows a predictable daily, weekly and seasonal pattern. There are periods of high power
consumption as well as low power consumption. It is therefore possible to commit the generating
units from the available capacity into service to meet the demand. The previous discussions all
deal with the computational aspects for allocating load to a plant in the most economical manner.
For a given combination of plants the determination of optimal combination of plants for operation
at any one time is also desired for carrying out the aforesaid task. The plant commitment and unit
ordering schedules extend the period of optimization from a few minutes to several hours. From
daily schedules weekly patterns can be developed. Likewise, monthly, seasonal and annual
schedules can be prepared taking into consideration the repetitive nature of the load demand and
seasonal variations. Unit commitment schedules are thus required for economically committing the
units in plants to service with the time at which individual units should be taken out from or
returned to service.

Constraints in Unit Commitment:

Many constraints can be placed on the unit commitment problem. The list presented here is by no
means exhaustive. 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 characteristics,

and such.

Spinning Reserve:

Spinning reserve is the term used to describe the total amount of generation available

from all units synchronized (i.e., spinning) on the system, minus the present load and losses being
supplied. Spinning reserve must be carried so that the loss of one or more units does not cause too
far a drop in system frequency. Quite simply, if one unit is lost, there must be ample reserve on the
other units to make up for the loss in a specified time period. Spinning reserve must be allocated to
obey certain rules, usually set by regional reliability councils (in the United States) that specify
how the reserve is to be allocated to various units. Typical rules specify that reserve must be a
given percentage of forecasted peak demand, or that reserve must be capable of making up the loss
of the most heavily loaded unit in a given period of [Link] calculate reserve requirements as a
function of the probability of not having sufficient generation to meet the load. Not only must the
reserve be sufficient to make up for a generation-unit failure, but the reserves must be allocated
among fast-responding units and slow-responding units. This allows the automatic generation
control system to restore frequency and interchange quickly in the event of a generating-unit
outage. Beyond spinning reserve, the unit commitment problem may involve various classes of
“scheduled reserves” or “off-line” reserves. These include quick-start

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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 up to full capacity quickly. As such, these units can be
“counted” in the overall reserve assessment, as long as their time to come up to full capacity is
taken into account. Reserves, finally, must be spread around the power system to avoid
transmission system limitations (often called “bottling” of reserves) and to allow various parts of
the system to run as “islands,” should they become electrically disconnected.

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 on-line. As a result of such restrictions in the operation of
a thermal plant, various constraints arise, such as:

1. Minimum up time: once the unit is running, it should not be turned off immediately

2. Minimum down time: once the unit is decommitted, there is a minimum time before it can be
recommitted.

3. 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 both units while starting up. In
addition, because the temperature and pressure of the thermal unit must be moved slowly, a
certain amount of energy must be expended to bring the unit on-line. This energy does not result
in any MW generation from the unit and is brought into the unit commitment problem as a
start-up cost. The start-up 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 operating
temperature. There are two approaches to treating a thermal unit during its down period. The
first 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. The costs for the two can be
compared so that, if possible, the best approach (cooling or banking) can be chosen.

4. Cf= fixed cost (includes crew expense, maintenance expenses) (in R)

5. α = thermal time constant for the unit

6. t = time (h) the unit was cooled

7. Start-up cost when banking = Ct x t

8. x F+Cf

9. Ct = cost (MBtu/h) of maintaining unit at operating temperature up to a certain number of

hours, the cost of banking will be less than the cost of cooling, as is illustrated in Figure
[Link], the capacity limits of thermal units may change frequently, due to maintenance or
unscheduled outages of various equipment in the plant; this must also be taken.

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Other Constraints:

Hydro-Constraints:

Unit commitment cannot be completely separated from the scheduling of hydro-units. In this text,
we will assume that the hydrothermal scheduling (or “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.
Some units are given a must-run status during certain times of the year for reason of voltage
support on the transmission network or for such purposes as supply of steam for uses outside the
steam plant itself.

Fig.1:Hydro constraints

Fuel Constraints:

We will treat the “fuel scheduling” problem 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 Solution Methods:

The commitment problem can be very difficult. As a theoretical exercise, let us postulate the
following situation.

[Link] must establish a loading pattern for M periods.

[Link] have N units to commit and dispatch.

[Link] M load levels and operating limits on the N units are such that any one unit can supply the
individual loads and that any combination of units can also supply the loads.

Next, assume we are going to establish the commitment by enumeration (brute force). The total
number of combinations we need to try each hour is,

C (N, 1) + C (N,2) + ... + C(N, N - 1) + C ( N , N ) = 2N– 1 ..........(18)

Where C (N, j) is the combination of N items taken j at a time. That is,

For the total period of M intervals, the maximum number of possible combinations is (2N - l)M,
which can become a horrid number to think about.
For example, take a 24-h period (e.g., 24 one-hour intervals) and consider systems with 5, 10, 20
and 40 units.
These very large numbers are the upper bounds for the number of enumerations required.
Fortunately, the constraints on the units and the load-capacity relationships of typical utility
systems are such that we do not approach these large numbers. Nevertheless, the real practical
barrier in the optimized unit commitment problem is the high dimensionality of the possible
solution space.
The most talked-about techniques for the solution of the unit commitment problem are:
[Link]-list schemes,
[Link] programming (DP),
3. Forward Dynamic programming (FDP).

Priority-List Method for unit commitment solution:

The simplest unit commitment solution method consists of creating a priority list of units. As a
simple shut-down rule or priority-list scheme could be obtained after an exhaustive enumeration of
all unit combinations at each load level. The priority list of Example 5B could be obtained in a
much simpler manner by noting the full- load average production cost of each unit, where the full-
load average production cost is simply the net heat rate at full load multiplied by the fuel cost.

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Priority List Method:
Priority list method 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. Start up costs are a fixed amount
4. Ignore minimum up time and minimum down time
Steps to be followed
[Link] the full load average production cost for each units
[Link] priority order based on average production cost
[Link] number of units corresponding to the priority order
[Link] PG1, PG2 ,PGN from economic dispatch problem for the feasible combinations only.
[Link] 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
[Link] the number of hours H, before the unit will be needed again.
[Link] H< minimum shut down time.
If not, go to the last step If yes, go to the next step
[Link] two costs
1. Sum of hourly production for the next H hours with the unit up
2. Recalculate the same for the unit down + start up cost for either cooling or banking
[Link] 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. Start up cost are fixed amount
2. No load costs are not considered.

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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

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)] ---------------- (20)

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 )

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