Title: Operational planning in district combined heat and power systems by mixed-integer nonlinear programming models

Authors: Hariharan Gopalakrishnan; Dragoljub Kosanovic

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts, 160 Governors Drive, Amherst, MA 01003-9265, USA ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts, 160 Governors Drive, Amherst, MA 01003-9265, USA

Abstract: A mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model is presented for operational planning problems arising in district combined heat and power (CHP) systems. Annual operations data from a district CHP system having a total electric capacity of 16 MW and heat capacity of 182 MW is used for the analysis. Two important features of fossil-fuel equipment incorporated in the model are the nonlinear change in efficiency of boilers with operating load and the nonlinear change in nominal output and efficiency of gas turbines with ambient temperature and operating load. The resulting nonlinear model is solved in MATLAB using the TOMLAB/MINLP solver. The research results show that the proposed methodology can produce meaningful reductions in system running costs and is viable to implement in real-life scenarios.

Keywords: combined heat and power; CHP; mixed-integer nonlinear programming; MINLP; energy; optimisation; gas turbines; heat recovery steam generators; HRSG; boiler efficiency; steam turbines; operational planning; nonlinear modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEC.2015.068436

International Journal of Power and Energy Conversion, 2015 Vol.6 No.1, pp.1 - 27

Received: 01 Jul 2013
Accepted: 13 Feb 2014
Published online: 03 Apr 2015 *

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