Combined operational planning of natural gas and electric power systems: state of the art

Abstract

The growing installation and utilization of natural gas fired power plants (NGFPPs) over the last two decades has lead to increasing interactions between electricity and natural gas (NG) sectors. From 1990 to 2005, the worldwide share of NGFPPs in the power generation mix has almost doubled, from around 10% to nearly 19%; reaching in 2007, for instance, the 54% in Argentina, the 42% in Italy, the 40% in USA, and the 32% in UK (IEA, 2007; IEA, 2009a). The installation of NGFPPs has been driven by technical, economic and environmental reasons. The high thermal efficiency of combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plants and combined heat and power (CHP) units, their relatively low investment costs, short construction lead time and the prevailing low natural gas prices until 2004 have made NGFPPs more attractive than traditional coal, oil and nuclear power plants, particularly in liberalized electricity markets. Additionally, burning NG has a smaller environmental footprint and a lower carbon emission than any other fossil fuel. Under the light of all conditions previously described, there is a strong and rising interdependency between NG and electricity sectors. In this context, it is essential to include NG system models in electric power systems operation and planning. On the other hand, NG system operation and planning require, as input data, the NG demands of each NGFPPs, which accurately values can only be obtained from the electric power systems dispatch. Therefore, several approaches that address the integrated modeling of electric power and NG systems have been presented. These new approaches contrast with the current models in which both systems are considered in a decoupled manner.