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In order to achieve sustainable development goals, modern power systems need to achieve a low-carbon transition. Retirement and replacement of aging coal-fired power plants (CFPP) is the major part of electricity network transition. However, the sudden retirement of large aging CFPP could lead to power supply or reserve shortages and generally, it takes several years to complete the replacement process. This paper proposes a low-carbon electricity network transition model, helping to plan aging CFPP retirement and renewable power plants installation as well as network augmentation. The trade-off decisions are found among three conflicting objectives including cost, risk and carbon emission. Moreover, the carbon emission flow (CEF) model is applied in the planning process to calculate carbon emissions from the demand side, in order to assess the efficacy of the low-carbon transition. A relatively new multi-objective natural aggregation algorithm (MONAA) is introduced and applied to find the optimal solution. The proposed model is verified on a modified IEEE 24-bus RTS system and a modified IEEE 118-bus system. According to the numerical results, the proposed model can achieve carbon mitigation, cost and risk benefits and provide a roadmap to guide the energy network transformation towards a low-carbon economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notable benefit can be brought by combined operation of a coupled electricity and heat system (CEHS), and be enhanced by introducing thermal energy storage (TES). Existing literature researching on this topic either neglects the heat network, or requires TES system being located and operated together with a combined heat and power unit. This paper aims at removing such requirement whilst taking heat network into account. With prevalent constant-flow variable temperature control strategy of heat network, the optimal dispatch model of CEHS considering independent TES (ITES) system with networked electric and heat energy distribution systems is presented. The non-convex parts in the heat network, mainly caused by the MFR reversal when ITES changes its operation state, are exactly reformulated to mixed-integer linear (MIL) constraints, which leads to a mixed-integer second-order programming formulation of the problem. Case studies demonstrate that introducing ITES not only brings reduction in the total operation cost, but also ameliorates the system reliability and its capability in accommodating renewables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural gas is an important fuel source in the power industry. Electricity and natural gas are both energy that can be directly consumed. To improve the overall efficiency of the energy infrastructure, it is imperative that the expansion of gas power plants, electricity transmission lines and gas pipelines can be co-planned. The co-planning process is modeled as a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem to handle conflicting objectives simultaneously. We propose a novel model to identify the optimal co-expansion plan in terms of social welfare. To evaluate the robustness of plans under different scenarios, the flexibility criterion is used to identify each plan’s adaptation cost to uncertainties, such as demand growth, fuel cost and financial constraints, etc. We developed a systematic and comprehensive planning model to understand, develop and optimize energy grids in order to reach higher social welfare, and is therefore of great importance in terms of supporting and guiding investment decisions for the power and gas industry. Meanwhile, we use the sequential importance sampling (SIS) to perform scenario reduction for achieving a higher computational efficiency. A comprehensive case study on the integrated IEEE 14-bus and a test gas system is conducted to validate our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a clean fuel source, natural gas plays an important role in achieving a low-carbon economy in the power industry. Owing to the uncertainties introduced by increasing utilization of natural gas in electric power system, gas system and electricity system should be planned in an integrated manner. When considering these two systems simultaneously, there are many emerging difficulties, e.g., increased system complexity and risk, market timeline mismatch, overall system reliability evaluation, etc. In this paper, a novel expansion co-planning (ECP) framework is proposed to address the above challenges. In our approach, the planning process is modeled as a mixed integer nonlinear optimization problem. The best augmentation option is a plan with the highest cost/benefit ratio. Benefits of expansion planning considered are reductions in operation cost, carbon emission cost, and unreliability cost. By identifying several scenarios based on statistical analysis and expert knowledge, decision analysis is used to tackle market uncertainties. The operational and economic interdependency of both systems are well analyzed. Case studies on a three-bus gas and two-bus power system, plus the Victorian integrated gas and electricity system in Australia are presented to validate the performance of the proposed framework. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The overall performance of emission trading (ET), a market-based emission regulation tool, strongly relies on participants' participation and responses. In order to improve market design, it is important for policy makers to understand the participants' trading behaviors in different market environments. However, human behaviors cannot be easily modeled with conventional analytical methods due to its “bounded rationality” characteristics. In this paper, based on the complementary features between experimental and agent-based computational methods, a hybrid interactive simulation methodology is proposed to solve human behaviors related problems. Human-subjected experiment based on European Union Emissions Trading System price data in 2006 is conducted, the results show that there is no fixed emission trading interval for generation companies, and the strategic behaviors of market participants are observed. Major driving factors of emission trading are categorized into emission price, emission quantity and time related factors, which are in accordance with empirical analysis results on EU ETS 2005–2006 transaction dataset. Furthermore, more human-subjected experiments are conducted under different emission price scenarios to obtain samples for quantitative analysis. Based on thousands of samples obtained, the joint influences of driving factors on emission trading behaviors are analyzed. The quantitative analysis results obtained can reflect the trading patterns of human participants, which provide basis for constructing computer agents that can act as useful substitutes for human participants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Along with the increasing penetration of renewable energy, distribution system power flow may be significantly altered in terms of direction and magnitude. This will make delivering reliable power, on demand, a major challenge. In this paper, a novel battery energy storage system (BESS) based energy acquisition model is proposed for the operation of distribution companies (DISCOs) in regulating price or locational marginal price (LMP) mechanisms, while considering energy provision options within DISCO controlled areas. Based on this new model, a new battery operation strategy is proposed for better utilization of energy storage system (ESS) and mitigation operational risk from price volatility. Meanwhile, optimal sizing and siting decisions for BESS is obtained through a cost-benefit analysis method, which aims at maximizing the DISCO's profit from energy transactions, system planning and operation cost savings. The proposed energy acquisition model and ESS control strategy are verified on a modified IEEE 15-bus distribution network, and risk mitigation is also quantified in two different markets. The promising results show that the capacity requirement for ESS can be reduced and the operational risk can also be mitigated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Electric vehicle (EV) is a promising technology for reducing environmental impacts of road transport. In this paper, a framework for optimal design of battery charging/swap stations in distribution systems based on life cycle cost (LCC) is presented. The battery charging/swap station models are developed to compare the impacts of rapid-charging stations and battery swap stations. Meanwhile, in order to meet the requirements of increased power provided during the charging period, the distribution network should be reinforced. In order to control this reinforcement cost, stations should be placed at appropriate places and be scaled correctly. For optimal cost-benefit analysis and safety operation, the LCC criterion is used to assess the project and a modified differential evolution algorithm is adopted to solve the problem. The proposed method has been verified on the modified IEEE 15-bus and 43-bus radial distribution systems. The results show that battery swap station is more suitable for public transportation in distribution systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]