An Uncertainty Management Framework for Integrated Gas-Electric Energy Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel uncertainty management framework for integrated gas-electric systems, using joint optimization and robust methods to ensure feasible operation amid renewable variability and gas consumption uncertainties.

Contribution

It presents a physically accurate, tractable optimization approach for managing uncertainty in integrated gas and electric networks, incorporating transient gas pipeline flow models.

Findings

The framework effectively manages uncertainty, reducing constraint violations.

Benchmarking shows improved system reliability over existing methods.

The approach ensures high-probability feasibility in integrated operations.

Abstract

In many parts of the world, electric power systems have seen a significant shift towards generation from renewable energy and natural gas. Because of their ability to flexibly adjust power generation in real time, gas-fired power plants are frequently seen as the perfect partner for variable renewable generation. However, this reliance on gas generation increases interdependence and propagates uncertainty between power grids and gas pipelines, and brings coordination and uncertainty management challenges. To address these issues, we propose an uncertainty management framework for uncertain, but bounded gas consumption by gas-fired power plants. The admissible ranges are computed based on a joint optimization problem for the combined gas and electricity networks, which involves chance-constrained scheduling for the electric grid and a novel robust optimization formulation for the natural gas network. This formulation ensures feasibility of the integrated system with a high probability, while providing a tractable numerical formulation. A key advance with respect to existing methods is that our method is based on a physically accurate, validated model for transient gas pipeline flows. Our case study benchmarks our proposed formulation against methods that ignore how reserve activation impacts the fuel use of gas power plants, and only consider predetermined gas consumption. The results demonstrate the importance of considering uncertainty to avoid operating constraint violations and curtailment of gas to the generators.