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LECTURE NOTES

ON

POWER SYSTEM OPERATION AND

CONTROL

IV B. Tech I semester (JNTUH-R13)

ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

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UNIT-I
Economic Operation of Power Systems -1

Overview
 Economic Distribution of Loads between the Units of a Plant
 Generating Limits
 Economic Sharing of Loads between Different Plants
Automatic Generation Control
 Load Frequency Control
Coordination between LFC and Economic Dispatch
A good business practice is the one in which the production cost is minimized without sacrificing
the quality. This is not any different in the power sector as well. The main aim here is to reduce the
production cost while maintaining the voltage magnitudes at each bus. In this chapter we shall discuss the
economic operation strategy along with the turbine-governor control that are required to maintain the
power dispatch economically.
A power plant has to cater to load conditions all throughout the day, come summer or winter. It is
therefore illogical to assume that the same level of power must be generated at all time. The power
generation must vary according to the load pattern, which may in turn vary with season. Therefore the
economic operation must take into account the load condition at all times. Moreover once the economic
generation condition has been calculated, the turbine-governor must be controlled in such a way that this
generation condition is maintained. In this chapter we shall discuss these two aspects.

Economic operation of power systems

Introduction:
One of the earliest applications of on-line centralized control was to provide a central facility, to
operate economically, several generating plants supplying the loads of the system. Modern integrated
systems have different types of generating plants, such as coal fired thermal plants, hydel plants, nuclear
plants, oil and natural gas units etc. The capital investment, operation and maintenance costs are different
for different types of plants.

The operation economics can again be subdivided into two parts.

i) Problem of economic dispatch, which deals with determining the power output of each plant to meet the
specified load, such that the overall fuel cost is minimized.
ii) Problem of optimal power flow, which deals with minimum – loss delivery, where in the power flow,
is optimized to minimize losses in the system.

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In this chapter we consider the problem of economic dispatch. During operation of the plant, a
generator may be in one of the following states:
i) Base supply without regulation: the output is a constant.
ii) Base supply with regulation: output power is regulated based on system load.
iii) Automatic non-economic regulation: output level changes around a base setting as area control error
changes.
iv) Automatic economic regulation: output level is adjusted, with the area load and area control error,
while tracking an economic setting. Regardless of the units operating state, it has a contribution to the
economic operation, even though its output is changed for different reasons.
The factors influencing the cost of generation are the generator efficiency, fuel cost and
transmission losses. The most efficient generator may not give minimum cost, since it may be located in a
place where fuel cost is high. Further, if the plant is located far from the load centers, transmission losses
may be high and running the plant may become uneconomical. The economic dispatch problem basically
determines the generation of different plants to minimize total operating cost.

Modern generating plants like nuclear plants, geo-thermal plants etc, may require capital investment of
millions of rupees. The economic dispatch is however determined in terms of fuel cost per unit power
generated and does not include capital investment, maintenance, depreciation, start-up and shut down
costs etc.
Performance Curves Input-Output Curve
This is the fundamental curve for a thermal plant and is a plot of the input in British

Thermal units (Btu) per hour versus the power output of the plant in MW as shown in Fig1
Incremental Fuel Rate Curve
The incremental fuel rate is equal to a small change in input divided by the corresponding change
in output.

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The unit is again Btu / KWh. A plot of incremental fuel rate versus the output is shown in Fig 3

Incremental cost curve

The incremental cost is the product of incremental fuel rate and fuel cost (Rs / Btu) the curve is
shown in Fig. 4. The unit of the incremental fuel cost is Rs / MWhr.

Fig 4: Incremental cost curve

In general, the fuel cost Fi for a plant, is approximated as a quadratic function of the generated output
PGi.

The incremental fuel cost is given by

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The incremental fuel cost is a measure of how costly it will be produce an increment of power.
The incremental production cost, is made up of incremental fuel cost plus the incremental cost of labor,
water, maintenance etc. which can be taken to be some percentage of the incremental fuel cost, instead of
resorting to a rigorous mathematical model. The cost curve can be approximated by a linear curve. While
there is negligible operating cost for a hydel plant, there is a limitation on the power output possible. In
any plant, all units normally operate between PGmin, the minimum loading limit, below which it is
technically infeasible to operate a unit and PGmax, which is the maximum output limit. Section
I: Economic Operation of Power System
 Economic Distribution of Loads between the Units of a Plant
 Generating Limits
 Economic Sharing of Loads between Different Plants

In an early attempt at economic operation it was decided to supply power from the most efficient
plant at light load conditions. As the load increased, the power was supplied by this most efficient plant
till the point of maximum efficiency of this plant was reached. With further increase in load, the next
most efficient plant would supply power till its maximum efficiency is reached. In this way the power
would be supplied by the most efficient to the least efficient plant to reach the peak demand.
Unfortunately however, this method failed to minimize the total cost of electricity generation. We must
therefore search for alternative method which takes into account the total cost generation of all the units
of a plant that is supplying a load.

Economic Distribution of Loads between the Units of a Plant

To determine the economic distribution of a load amongst the different units of a plant, the
variable operating costs of each unit must be expressed in terms of its power output. The fuel cost is the
main cost in a thermal or nuclear unit. Then the fuel cost must be expressed in terms of the power output.
Other costs, such as the operation and maintenance costs, can also be expressed in terms of the power
output. Fixed costs, such as the capital cost, depreciation etc., are not included in the fuel cost.
The fuel requirement of each generator is given in terms of the Rupees/hour. Let us define the
input cost of an unit- i, fi in Rs/h and the power output of the unit as Pi . Then the input cost can be
expressed in terms of the power output as

Rs/h (1.1)
The operating cost given by the above quadratic equation is obtained by approximating the power
in MW versus the cost in Rupees curve. The incremental operating cost of each unit is then computed as

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Rs/MWhr (1.2)

Let us now assume that only two units having different incremental costs supply a load. There
will be a reduction in cost if some amount of load is transferred from the unit with higher incremental cost
to the unit with lower incremental cost. In this fashion, the load is transferred from the less efficient unit
to the more efficient unit thereby reducing the total operation cost. The load transfer will continue till the
incremental costs of both the units are same. This will be optimum point of operation for both the units.
The above principle can be extended to plants with a total of N number of units. The total fuel cost will
then be the summation of the individual
fuel cost fi , i = 1, ... , N of each unit, i.e.,

(1.3)

Let us denote that the total power that the plant is required to supply by PT , such that

(1.4)
Where P1 , ... , PN are the power supplied by the N different units.
The objective is minimizing fT for a given PT. This can be achieved when the total difference dfT becomes
zero, i.e.

(1.5)
Now since the power supplied is assumed to be constant we have

(1.6)

Multiplying (1.6) by λ and subtracting from (1.5) we get

(1.7)
The equality in (5.7) is satisfied when each individual term given in brackets is zero. This gives us

(1.8)

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Also the partial derivative becomes a full derivative since only the term fi of fT varies with Pi, i = 1... N.
We then have

(1.9)

Generating Limits
It is not always necessary that all the units of a plant are available to share a load. Some of the
units may be taken off due to scheduled maintenance. Also it is not necessary that the less efficient units
are switched off during off peak hours. There is a certain amount of shut down and start up costs
associated with shutting down a unit during the off peak hours and servicing it back on-line during the
peak hours. To complicate the problem further, it may take about eight hours or more to restore the boiler
of a unit and synchronizing the unit with the bus. To meet the sudden change in the power demand, it may
therefore be necessary to keep more units than it necessary to meet the load demand during that time. This
safety margin in generation is called spinning reserve.
The optimal load dispatch problem must then incorporate this startup and shut down cost for without
endangering the system security.
The power generation limit of each unit is then given by the inequality constraints

(1.10)

The maximum limit PGmax is the upper limit of power generation capacity of each unit. On the other hand,
the lower limit PGmin pertains to the thermal consideration of operating a boiler in a thermal or nuclear
generating station. An operational unit must produce a minimum amount of power such that the boiler
thermal components are stabilized at the minimum design operating temperature.

Example 1
Consider two units of a plant that have fuel costs of

Rs/h and Rs/h

Then the incremental costs will be

Rs/MWhr and Rs/MWhr

If these two units together supply a total of 220 MW, then P1 = 100 MW and P2 = 120 MW will result in
an incremental cost of

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Rs/MWhr and Rs/MWhr

This implies that the incremental costs of both the units will be same, i.e., the cost of one extra MW of
generation will be Rs. 90/MWhr. Then we have

Rs/h and Rs/h

And total cost of generation is p

Rs/h
Now assume that we operate instead with P 1 = 90 MW and P 2 = 130 MW. Then the individual cost of
each unit will be

Rs/h and Rs/h

And total cost of generation is

Rs./h
This implies that an additional cost of Rs. 75 is incurred for each hour of operation with this non-optimal
setting. Similarly it can be shown that the load is shared equally by the two units, i.e. P1 = P2 = 110 MW,
then the total cost is again 10,880 Rs/h.

Example 2
Let us consider a generating station that contains a total number of three generating units. The fuel costs
of these units are given by

Rs/h

Rs/h

Rs/h
The generation limits of the units are

The total load that these units supply varies between 90 MW and 1250 MW. Assuming that all the three
units are operational all the time, we have to compute the economic operating settings as the load
changes.

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The incremental costs of these units are

Rs/MWhr

Rs/MWhr

Rs/MWhr
At the minimum load the incremental cost of the units are

Rs/MWhr

Rs/MWhr

Rs/MWhr
Since units 1 and 3 have higher incremental cost, they must therefore operate at 30 MW each. The
incremental cost during this time will be due to unit-2 and will be equal to 26 Rs/MWhr. With the
generation of units 1 and 3 remaining constant, the generation of unit-2 is increased till its incremental
cost is equal to that of unit-1, i.e., 34 Rs/MWhr. This is achieved when P2 is equal to 41.4286 MW, at a
total power of 101.4286 MW.
An increase in the total load beyond 101.4286 MW is shared between units 1 and 2, till their incremental
costs are equal to that of unit-3, i.e., 43.5 Rs/MWhr. This point is reached when P1 = 41.875 MW and P2
= 55 MW. The total load that can be supplied at that point is equal to 126.875. From this point onwards
the load is shared between the three units in such a way that the incremental costs of all the units are
same. For example for a total load of 200 MW, from (5.4) and (5.9) we have

Solving the above three equations we get P1 = 66.37 MW, P2 = 80 MW and P3 = 50.63 MW and an
incremental cost (λ) of 63.1 Rs./MWhr. In a similar way the economic dispatch for various other load
settings are computed. The load distribution and the incremental costs are listed in Table 5.1 for various
total power conditions.

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At a total load of 906.6964, unit-3 reaches its maximum load of 250 MW. From this point onwards then,
the generation of this unit is kept fixed and the economic dispatch problem involves the other two units.
For example for a total load of 1000 MW, we get the following two equations from (1.4) and (1.9)

Solving which we get P1 = 346.67 MW and P2 = 403.33 MW and an incremental cost of 287.33
Rs/MWhr. Furthermore, unit-2 reaches its peak output at a total load of 1181.25. Therefore any further
increase in the total load must be supplied by unit-1 and the incremental cost will only be borne by this
unit. The power distribution curve is shown in Fig. 5.

Fig5. Power distribution between the units of Example 2

Example 3
Consider two generating plant with same fuel cost and generation limits. These are given by

For a particular time of a year, the total load in a day varies as shown in Fig. 5.2. Also an additional cost
of Rs. 5,000 is incurred by switching of a unit during the off peak hours and switching it back on during
the during the peak hours. We have to determine whether it is economical to have both units operational
all the time.

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Fig.6. Hourly distribution of a load for the units of Example 2

Since both the units have identical fuel costs, we can switch of any one of the two units during the off
peak hour. Therefore the cost of running one unit from midnight to 9 in the morning while delivering 200
MW is

Rs.
Adding the cost of Rs. 5,000 for decommissioning and commissioning the other unit after nine hours, the
total cost becomes Rs. 167,225. 0
On the other hand, if both the units operate all through the off peak hours sharing power equally, then we
get a total cost of

Rs.
Which is significantly less that the cost of running one unit alone?

Table 1.1 Load distribution and incremental cost for the units of Example 1
PT (MW) P1 (MW) P2 (MW) P3 (MW) λ (Rs./MWh)
90 30 30 30 26
101.4286 30 41.4286 30 34
120 38.67 51.33 30 40.93
126.875 41.875 55 30 43.5
150 49.62 63.85 36.53 49.7
200 66.37 83 50.63 63.1
300 99.87 121.28 78.85 89.9
400 133.38 159.57 107.05 116.7
500 166.88 197.86 135.26 143.5

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600 200.38 236.15 163.47 170.3

700 233.88 274.43 191.69 197.1
800 267.38 312.72 219.9 223.9
906.6964 303.125 353.5714 250 252.5
1000 346.67 403.33 250 287.33
1100 393.33 456.67 250 324.67
1181.25 431.25 500 250 355
1200 450 500 250 370
1250 500 500 250 410

DERIVATION OF TRANSMISSION LOSS FORMULA:

An accurate method of obtaining general loss coefficients has been presented by Kroc. The
method is elaborate and a simpler approach is possible by making the following assumptions:
(i) All load currents have same phase angle with respect to a common reference
(ii) The ratio X / R is the same for all the network branches
Consider the simple case of two generating plants connected to an arbitrary number of loads through a
transmission network as shown in Fig a

Fig.2.1 Two plants connected to a number of loads through a transmission network

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Let‟s assume that the total load is supplied by only generator 1 as shown in Fig 8.9b. Let the current
through a branch K in the network be IK1. We define

It is to be noted that IG1 = ID in this case. Similarly with only plant 2 supplying the load
Current ID, as shown in Fig 8.9c, we define

NK1 and NK2 are called current distribution factors and their values depend on the impedances of the
lines and the network connection. They are independent of ID. When both generators are supplying the
load, then by principle of superposition IK = NK1 IG1 + NK2 IG2
Where IG1, IG2 are the currents supplied by plants 1 and 2 respectively, to meet the demand ID. Because
of the assumptions made, IK1 and ID have same phase angle, as do IK2 and ID. Therefore, the current
distribution factors are real rather than complex. Let

Where σ1 and σ2 are phase angles of IG1 and IG2 with respect to a common reference. We can write

Where PG1, PG2 are three phase real power outputs of plant1 and plant 2; V1, V2 are the line to line bus
voltages of the plants and Φ1 and Φ2 are the power factor angles.
The total transmission loss in the system is given by

Where the summation is taken over all branches of the network and RK is the branch
resistance. Substituting we get

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The loss – coefficients are called the B – coefficients and have unit MW-1

For a general system with n plants the transmission loss is expressed as

In a compact form

B – Coefficients can be treated as constants over the load cycle by computing them at average operating
conditions, without significant loss of accuracy.

Economic Sharing of Loads between Different Plants

So far we have considered the economic operation of a single plant in which we have discussed
how a particular amount of load is shared between the different units of a plant. In this problem we did
not have to consider the transmission line losses and assumed that the losses were a part of the load
supplied. However if now consider how a load is distributed between the different plants that are joined

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by transmission lines, then the line losses have to be explicitly included in the economic dispatch
problem. In this section we shall discuss this problem.
When the transmission losses are included in the economic dispatch problem

(2.1)

(2.2)
Where PLOSS is the total line loss. Since PT is assumed to be constant, we have

................ (2.3
In the above equation dPLOSS includes the power loss due to every generator, i.e.,
Also minimum generation cost implies dfT = 0 as given in (1.5). Multiplying both (2.2) and (2.3) by λ and
combining we get

(2.4)

(2.5)
Adding (2.4) with (1.5) we obtain

(2.6)
The above equation satisfies when

Again since

(2.7)

From (2.6) we get

(2.8)

Where Li is called the penalty factor of load- i and is given by

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Consider an area with N number of units. The power generated are defined by the vector

(2.9)
Then the transmission losses are expressed in general as
Where B is a symmetric matrix given by

The elements Bij of the matrix B are called the loss coefficients. These coefficients are not constant but
vary with plant loading. However for the simplified calculation of the penalty factor Li these coefficients
are often assumed to be constant.
When the incremental cost equations are linear, we can use analytical equations to find out the economic
settings. However in practice, the incremental costs are given by nonlinear equations that may even
contain nonlinearities. In that case iterative solutions are required to find the optimal generator settings.

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