Unit Commitment With Dynamic Cycling Costs

Increased competition in the electricity sector and the integration of variable renewable energy sources is resulting in more frequent cycling of thermal plant. Thus, the wear-and-tear to generator components and the related costs are a growing concern for plant owners and system operators alike. This paper presents a formulation that can be implemented in a MIP dispatch model to dynamically model cycling costs based on unit operation. When implemented for a test system, the results show that dynamically modeling cycling costs reduces cycling operation and tends to change the merit order over time. This leads to the burden of cycling operation being more evenly distributed over the plant portfolio and reduces the total system costs relative to the case when cycling costs are not modeled.