STM Article Repository

Modern electrical power systems integrate renewable generation, with solar generation being one of the pioneers worldwide. In Latin America, the greatest potential and development of solar generation is found in Chile through the National Electric System. However, its energy matrix faces a crisis of drought and reduction of emissions that limits hydroelectric generation and involves the definitive withdrawal of coal generation. The dispatch of these plants is carried out by the system operator, who uses a simplified mechanism, called “economic merit list” and which does not reflect the real costs of the plants to the damage of the operating and marginal cost of the system. This inefficient dispatch scheme fails to optimize the availability of stored gas and its use over time. Therefore, a real-time redispatch model is proposed that minimizes the operation cost function of the power plants, integrating the variable generation cost as a polynomial function of the net specific fuel consumption, adding gas volume stock restrictions and water reservoirs. In addition, the redispatch model uses an innovative “maximum dispatch power” restriction, which depends on the demand associated with the automatic load disconnection scheme due to low frequency. Finally, by testing real simulation cases, the redispatch model manages to optimize the operation and dispatch costs of power plants, allowing the technical barriers of the market to be broken down with the aim of integrating ancillary services in the short term, using the power reserves in primary (PFC), secondary (SCF), and tertiary (TCF) frequency control.