Hierarchical dispatch method for integrated heat and power systems based on a feasible region of boundary variables

Fully utilizing the flexibility provided by a district heating system (DHS) can promote wind power accommodation for an electric power system (EPS). However, for privacy or communication reasons, existing power and heat dispatch methods are not suitable for practical application. In this paper, a general math formulation of the hierarchical dispatch method is proposed to coordinate EPS and DHS operators based on the feasible region of boundary variables (FRBV), and a method based on the simplicial approximation approach is proposed to obtain a conservative FRBV approximation of a DHS. A simulation based on a real 41-node DHS is constructed to determine the factors that may impact the boundaries of the FRBV, and then the performance of the simplicial approximation approach is displayed by visualizing the approximation process for the FRBV, and finally three dispatch methods are compared to show the advantages of the proposed hierarchical dispatch method.