UCL School of Management is delighted to welcome, David Brown, Duke, to host a research seminar discussing; Unit Commitment Without Commitment: A Dynamic Programming Approach for Managing an Integrated Energy System Under Uncertainty.

Abstract:

As modern power systems absorb larger shares of intermittent renewables, undergo rapid electrification of traditional end uses, and face explosive growth in large, volatile data center demand, uncertainty in net load has risen sharply, increasing the need for flexible grid operations. Current industry practice at vertically integrated utilities involves solving “unit commitment” and “economic dispatch” optimisation problems in production planning.

These models, though complex, do not explicitly incorporate uncertainty. In this talk, we discuss a dynamic programming approach to help system operators manage production under uncertainty. This approach manages unit commitment dispatch flexibly, i.e., without committing resources in advance. We first discuss relevant theory based on weakly coupled stochastic dynamic programming, then discuss the impact potential of this dynamic approach using data from the Duke Energy Carolinas and Progress systems. These experiments demonstrate that this dynamic approach is computationally feasible at an industrial scale and can improve current practice, with greater efficiency gains achievable in systems with higher levels of renewable generation. The talk will cover both the paper below and work in progress on extensions of the approach to network settings. (Joint work with Jim Smith, Dartmouth)