Integrated scheduling of batch production and utility systems for provision of control reserve

Abstract

Control reserve is becoming increasingly important due to the increase of fluctuating renewable energy. Today, control reserve is mostly provided by large fossil-based power plants. In the future, control reserve has to be provided increasingly by decentralized utility systems. The main purpose of these utility systems is to supply energy to production systems. However, production systems are commonly scheduled without considering control reserve. Only subsequently, the utility system is scheduled to supply the production system with energy and for potential provision of control reserve. This sequential approach misses synergistic opportunities between production and utility systems. In this contribution, we propose a method for integrated scheduling of utility and production systems with provision of control reserve. The integrated scheduling identifies production schedules offering potential to provide control reserve by the utility system. Uncertainty of control-reserve request is modeled by stochastic programming. The production schedule is fixed after the integrated scheduling and also not changed if control reserve is requested. In this case, only the utility system changes its operation. Our method is applied to a case study considering a batch production system and the utility system, which are scheduled for one day of operation. Compared to the sequential scheduling with consideration of control-reserve provision, our method saves additional 3.3% of operational expenditures. Thus, integrated scheduling of production and utility system for control-reserve provision is highly beneficial and the presented method identifies this potential in practice.