1. Power System Generation Expansion Plan
By: Jack Baldwin
Introduction
Changes are continuously happening in power systems: the load is changing (increasing or decreasing) year by year; the penalty cost of GHG emissions is increasing; and the renewable generation is growing. New generators and transmission lines are needed to be built to meet these changes in power systems. Since different expansion combinations may have different investment costs and result to different operation costs, engineers need to seek the best expansion plan to meet the load demand the minimum cost (sum of built cost and operation cost).
Generation expansion Plan
The power grid will need to expand in order to meet the demands from the consumers.
Power grid planners will need to make different new power plants depending on the situation(location, demand, resources, etc.).
Cost $
Minimum cost plan x
Investment x
Production Cost P(x)
Investment cost/
Capital cost C(x)
Total Cost = C(x) + P(x)
Optimization: Minimize net present value of forward-looking costs (i.e. capital and production costs) G … G1 G2
G20
Planning horizon: 20 years ( )
Simple system with 20 incumbent generators
Demand growth:
Energy 4% p.a.
Maximum 5% p.a.
Case 0
Cases
Description
Case 0
no new capacity are allowed to build
Case 1
CCGT, GT, wind options available
Figure 1. Peak Load and Capacity Margin (case 0)
Figure 2. Unserved Energy and Price (case 0)
Case 1
Fig 3. Generation capacity build (case 1)
Fig 4. Peak Load and Capacity Margin (case 1)
Fig 5. Unserved Energy and Price (case 1)
Conclusion:
1.When no generation expansion is allowed, the generation capacity will be smaller than peak load as the load has a 5% annual growth rate. This will result to a significant increase of the electricity price. There is also much unserved energy in the final years.
2. When generation is allowed to be expanded, new generators are build annually. The expansion speed is similar to the growth of load. The electricity price also increase annually but it’s tremendously smaller than that of Case 0. Wind capacity expansion capacity reach its limit — 500WM, indicating wind is a competitive expansion candidate.
Acknowledgements:
This work was supported primarily by the Engineering Research Center Program of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy under NSF Award Number EEC and the CURENT Industry Partnership Program.