Asynchronous Economic Dispatch for Combined Heat and Power Systems

In the day-ahead economic dispatch of combined heat and power systems, the electric power system is adjusted in minutes because of the short dynamic time and the requirement of real-time power balance, while the heating system is dispatched in hours due to its large inertia and long dynamic process. However, the different dispatch time scales of electricity and heat are ignored by existing synchronous dispatch methods, which limits the improvement of system efficiency. To address this challenge, in this article, the asynchronous dispatch method is proposed and instantiated by two different dispatch models featuring a short electric dispatch time scale and a long heat dispatch time scale. Case studies demonstrate the asynchronous dispatch method can overcome the efficiency and reliability problems caused by the existing synchronous dispatch methods.