Security-Constrained Unit Commitment With Flexible Uncertainty Set for Variable Wind Power

Abstract

Power system operation has recently witnessed major challenges, which are often due to large-scale integrations of wind power generation. In this paper, a two-stage robust security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC) model is proposed for managing the wind power uncertainty in the hourly scheduling of power system generation. Different from previous studies on robust SCUC, which considered a predefined uncertainty set, the proposed method applies a flexible uncertainty set for managing the variable wind power generation. The proposed method seeks a feasible and economic dispatch in the flexible uncertainty set, takes into account wind spillage and load curtailment risks, and makes a tradeoff between the optimal wind power absorption and the economic grid operation. Several case studies are applied to the proposed method and the corresponding solutions are analyzed in the paper. The impacts of major factors, including flexible generation resources and power transmission capacity, on the proposed solution are also discussed. The numerical results demonstrate the merits of the proposed method for managing large variations in the hourly wind power generation and lowering the power system operation cost in uncertain conditions.