In Denmark power generation is extensively based on small combined heat and power plants, which produce electric power and district heating. This work will focus on the small plants around 1 MW in size, which are often unmanned and operating completely automatically. The objective of this work is to formulate a method which can be used to determine the optimal operating strategy for a CHP plant, and that this strategy must be fully automated. The contribution margin of the plant is used as the objective function for the optimization. Finally the method is tested on a small CHP plant, which is a gas engine producing 1.34 MW electrical power and 1.6 MJ/s district heating. The methods, which are developed, can be used in general for the evaluation and optimization of automated strategies for the operation of small-unmanned CHP plants. The strong feature of the method is that it sets an ultimate target that is the best possible one to obtain with a view to any strategy. This provides a basis for the evaluation and optimization of the actual strategy.
The power generation system in Denmark is extensively based on small combined heat and power plants (CHP plants), which produce both electricity and district heating. This work deals with smaller plants spread throughout the country. Often a heat accumulator is used to enable electricity production, even when the heat demand is low. This system forms a very complex problem, both for dimensioning, designing and operation of CHP plants. The objective of the work is the development of a tool for the optimization of the operation of CHP plants. The optimization problem is a MINLP-problem of a very large scale. Therefore, a set of heuristic rules is formulated in order to reduce the size of the problem. Different cases are being tested, involving CHP producing units to cover the demand. The results show that it is of major importance to consider the operation of the plant in detail already in the design phase. It is of major importance to consider the optimization of the operation of a plant, even at the design stage, as it may cause the contribution margin to rise significantly, if the plant is designed on the basis of a detailed knowledge of the expected operation.
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