Heat and power unit commitment for the integration of intermittent renewable energy

Abstract

To be able to deal with large quantities of intermittent renewable energy sources, network flexibility must be added to allow a phase shift between supply and demand. This flexibility can be found in the coupling between heat and power, which provides demand response potential, and facilitates the decarbonization of the heating sector. To study the interaction between heat and power, a unit-commitment software has been improved with heat demand implementation, such as district heating networks with combined heat and power plants, heat pumps and thermal energy storage, as well as personal heat demand distribution. Moreover, the model presents temperature considerations enabling heat generation from low temperature heat pumps with high efficiency. Multiple scenarios with different heating configurations have been investigated. Their analysis lead to the conclusion that a strong heat and power coupling in a country network benefits to the reduction of its system cost a CO2 emissions.