Optimal dispatch model for district heating network based on interior-point method

Integrated energy system (IES) and relevant research have been the focus of many scholars in recent years. The coupling between different energy systems including electric, heating and natural gas can be optimized together to improve the overall system efficiency. In this paper, we concentrate on heating system dispatch problem and proposes an optimal dispatch model for district heating network (DHN) with combined heating and power (CHP) units, which considers the thermal balance and hydraulic equations in the pipelines. This is a nonlinear optimization problem which can be solved by interior-point method (IPM). The objective is to minimize the cost of fuel consumption for the whole system. A case study based on 20-nodes DHN with 3 CHP units and 19-branches is demonstrated, proving the effectiveness of the proposed model. Moreover, convergence analysis with comparison solved by traditional IPM and primal-dual IPM is discussed and several possible future research directions are proposed.