Operational-planning software realizes production cost savings

Abstract

Due to J lack of contraa between text and background, this page did noi reproduce well.ith a service territory spansophisticated real-time comning Georgia, Alabama, puter, the power management s y s t e m allows o p e r a t o r s t o Mississippi, and Florida, t h e Southern Electric System is one monitor the status of key equipof the largest investor-owned m e n t t h r o u g h o u t t h e bulkutility systems in t h e United p o w e r n e t w o r k a r o u n d t h e S t a t e s (Figure 1). From a n ways to lower clock. o p e r a t i n g p e r s p e c t i v e , t h e their overallThe power generated at the In today's competitive en vironment, electric utilities must find effective W Southern Company pool underwent major changes in the 1980-production costs thermal and hydro plants is sent to various load centers through 82 time period, before which the -the high-voltage transmission s y s t e m had relatively few operating options d u e to the high load growth and low capacity reserves. But with the completion of a number of large baseload units, and the opportunity to sell power t o neighboring utilities, t h e pool operation became much more complex, prompting the need for a more formalized approach to plan and monitor the day-to-day system operation.To help meet this need, Southern Company Services, Inc. (SCS) installed a comprehensive operational-planning software package in 1981 to forecast system loads, optimally schedule thermal and hydro units, estimate future prices of power transactions, and perform post analysis (Figure 2). This pioneering effort earned SCS second prize in the 1990 Franz Edelman Competition. Known as the World Series in operations research, the Franz Edelman Award recognizes companies that use innovative management science techniques to achieve substantial benefits.The pool's generation consists of 6 nuclear units, 73 coal-fired units, 22 gas/oil units, and 39 combustion turbines. Besides thermal units, the pool also operates 40 pondage-hydro plants and 2 pumped-storage plants.To maintain a stable operation, the power generated at the plants must balance customer loads and system losses exactly. The brain, which controls and monitors the entire Southern network, is the power management system located at the William R. Brownlee Coordination Center in Birmingham, Alabama. Equipped with a ~~ ~~ ' Alabama Power Coinpmy 0895-01 56/91/0700s y s t e m . Near t h e c u s t o m e r sites, power is converted t o lower voltage levels and fed to end users via the distribution network. The total capital investment for this combined generation, transmission, and distribution network is huge (over $25 billion for the Southern Electric System).