Fuel Resource Scheduling, Part I: Overview of an Energy Management Problem

This paper at an overview level discusses the problems of fuel and resource scheduling (FRS) in an energy management system (EMS). For a computer-based FRS, a hierarchical scheduling scheme is proposed so that long-term strategy over a year can be meaningfully translated into realtime decisions for loading the units. In this process FRS has been decomposed into individual problems of resource budgeting for long-term fuel scheduling, resource scheduling for short-term fuel scheduling, and real-time fuel scheduling functions of real-time resource scheduling and resource constrained economic dispatch. The paper addresses the data requirements and the technical problems associated with each individual function; and the coordination of these four functions in an EMS environment. Fuel resource scheduling (FRS) optimizes long-term fuel consumption based upon load and generating unit characteristics, and resource availability constraints. FRS translates the optimum long-term strategy to real-time (hours to minutes) constraints to be used by the economic dispatch for the realtime allocation of system generation requirement among the units. FRS covers a wide range of time periods (from one year to minutes) and involves a large number of constraints and variables. This makes the fuel constrained generation dispatch and control process extremely difficult for system dispatchers even with the aid of computers. This paper addresses the problems associated with FRS as an integral part of an energy management system.