Day-ahead Economic Dispatch of Power Systems Considering the Demand Response of Electrolytic Aluminum Loads

Due to the stochastic of PV and WT output, day-ahead dispatch of power systems becomes more difficult only by using thermal power units (TPU). To address this problem, electrolytic aluminum loads (EAL) can be used as a flexible demand-side resource to assist TPU in peak shaving and valley filling because of their characteristics. This paper proposed a new day-ahead economic dispatch method considering the demand response of EAL to integrate renewable output. Firstly, based on the characteristics of EAL, a hierarchical model for EAL to participate in system dispatch is proposed. Corresponding to the different capacities of EAL, the hierarchical model demonstrates four demand response stages which have different regulation characteristics. Secondly, to minimize system operation costs, a source-load coordination optimization model which can be solved by the Gurobi solver is established based on the participation of TPU and EAL. Finally, the case study result demonstrates that the proposed method can effectively reduce the curtailment of renewable energy and lower the system's operating cost.