Decentralized Solution for Combined Heat and Power Dispatch Through Benders Decomposition

The operational flexibility of electric power systems (EPS) is restricted by combined heat and power (CHP) units that act to maintain sufficient heating supply. By exploiting the pipeline heat storage property in central heating systems (CHS), combined heat and power dispatch (CHPD) can significantly increase the operational flexibility and reduce wind power curtailment. In this paper, pipeline heat storage is modeled in the CHPD model under the constant mass flow heating dispatch mode, and the CHPD model can be formulized as a quadratic programming problem. Since the EPS and CHS are independently operated by the EPS and CHS operators, a decentralized solution to the CHPD model is proposed. During each iteration of the decentralized procedure, an optimal cut or a feasible cut is generated by the CHS operator and sent to the EPS operator. A robust model considering the wind power uncertainty is also studied with the proposed decentralized solution. This decentralized solution has a high efficiency and a light communication burden. Numerical tests on practical systems demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed decentralized method and the economic benefits brought by reducing wind curtailment.