EVALUATION OF BENEFIT OF INTER-AREA ENERGY-EXCHANGE OF THE INDIAN POWER-SYSTEM BASED ON MULTIAREA UNIT COMMITMENT APPROACH

This paper deals with quantification of the benefit of interconnection between two large areas having different Load-Generation characterist ics. A multi-area unit commitement model based on Capacity Utilization Factor(CUF) and sequential techniques including dc(direct current) po wer flow module is developed to estimate the constrained(both system a nd transmission) inter-area energy exchange and its associated product ion cost. The model is applied to a vast and complex Indian Power Syst em with two different areas having different operating characteristics .The validity of the model is tested by comparing the solutions with t hose obtained by a multi-area combined Truncated Dynamic Programming ( DP-TC) based method. The results indicate that inter-area energy excha nge leads to a better optimal power system operation and substantial c ost savings may be achieved by utilizing the low cost energy resources and reserved energy in one area to another area which has higher cost of energy production.