System-Level Value of a Gas Engine Power Plant in Electricity and Reserve Production

Abstract

According to [14,17], gas engine power plants have shown potential to provide primary and secondary controlled reserves, which have the strictest technical requirements. According to the IRP, coal-fired generation will also have a major role in the future, but new nuclear and hydro generation installations, as well as OCGTs, PVs, wind power, and gas-fired generation installations are planned during the studied time period. Since the system may not have sufficient generation capacity available to supply the demand at all times, load curtailment, or demand response (DR) back up, is allowed but at a rather high price. [...]DR back-up is modeled to be the last action taken to ensure supply-demand balance as well as the feasibility of the optimization problem. Compared to CCGTs, a greater reduction in the operation cost was achieved with CCGEs not only because gas engines reduced more the use of diesel and DR back-up, but also because the utilization of cheap coal-fired generation was increased. [...]CCGE seems to offer flexibility for the system to follow daily variations in load and variable power generation, while allowing base load power plants to generate a stable output.