Spinning reserve optimization using reliability constrained unit commitment

Maintaining an appropriate amount of spinning reserve (SR) is a necessary condition to keep the reliable operation of power systems. In this paper, a probabilistic method is proposed to determine the optimal SR amount where the reliability levels are well kept. The SR amount is optimized through a reliability constrained unit commitment (RCUC). In the RCUC model the reliability indexes must be smaller than their upper limits are involved as the constraints. The introduction of the reliability indexes makes the optimization computation intensive. In this paper, a multi-step method is proposed to solve the problem efficiently. The reliability indices such as the expected energy not supplied and loss of load probability are analytically approximated in terms of piecewise linear formulations. The approximation error is gradually eliminated as the step progresses. The superiority of proposed technique is illustrated by the IEEE reliability test system. efficiency and validity of the proposed method is verified using the.