abstract
- © 2017 IEEE. In competitive energy markets, the growing adoption of renewable energy sources such as wind energy and photovoltaics causes power grid fluctuations due to the intermittency and variability in their power output. To balance the demand and generation by renewable sources conventional thermal power plants must operate with greater flexibility in the way they increase or decrease output. Furthermore, for a conventional plant to be competitive in the new energy market, it requires a balance between ramp rate and life consumption of the power-plant equipment. This paper proposes an approach to support the design of optimal operating profiles that minimize the ramp rate and maximizes the lifetime of critical equipment of conventional thermal power plants. The output of the methodology is the sequence of valve operations that achieve the operating profile.