Combined Economic Dispatch Considering the Time-Delay of District Heating Network and Multi-Regional Indoor Temperature Control

Wind power consumption is often curtailed by the inflexible operation of combined heat and power (CHP) units due to the strong coupling relationship between power generation and heating supply. Besides, the time delay of district heating network and indoor temperature usually affects the operation plan of the district heating system (DHS) heavily. Hence, a practical CHP-DHS model and multiregional coordinated operation strategy based on model predictive control are developed for planning and operating this CHP system. The thermal characteristics of demand side such as the thermal inertia of buildings and thermal comfort are taken into consideration. Three types of heat source are considered: CHP units, electrical boilers, and heat storage tanks. The objective of the optimization is to minimize the overall generation costs of CHP units and conventional thermal power units. Part of real provincial power system and a municipal DHS in the Northeastern China are used in this case study. The results show that the proposed method has better performance in wind power integration and indoor temperature control.