Combined heat and power dispatch considering pipeline energy storage of district heating network

The regional integration of variable wind power could be restricted by a strong coupling of electric power generation dispatch and heat supply of combined heat-and-power (CHP) units. The coupling in cold seasons precludes CHPs from providing the necessary flexibility for managing the wind power dispatch. The lack of flexibility problem can be tackled by exploiting the energy storage capability of a district heating network (DHN) which decouples the strong linkage of electric power and heat supplies. In this paper, a combined heat and power dispatch (CHPD) is formulated to coordinate the operation of electric power system (EPS) and district heating system (DHS). The proposed CHPD model which is solved by an iterative method considers the temperature dynamics of DHN for exploiting energy storage as an option for managing the variability of wind energy. The simulation results are discussed for several test systems to demonstrate the potential benefits of the proposed method in terms of operation economics, wind power utilization, as well as the potential benefits for real systems.