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Immune Procedure for Optimal Scheduling
of Complex Energy Systems
Enrico Carpaneto, Claudio Cavallero, Fabio Freschi, and Maurizio Repetto
Dept. of Electrical Engineering,
Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
{
enrico.carpaneto, claudio.cavallero,
fabio.freschi, maurizio.repetto
}
@polito.it
http://www.polito.it/cadema
Abstract.
The management of complex energy systems where different
power sources are active in a time varying scenario of costs and prices
needs ecient optimization approaches. Usually the scheduling problem
is is formulated as a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) to guar-
antee the convergence to the global optimum. The goal of this work is
to propose and compare a hybrid technique based on Artificial Immune
System (AIS) and linear programming versus the traditional MILP ap-
proach. Different energy scheduling problem cases are analyzed and re-
sults of the two procedures are compared both in terms of accuracy of
results and convergence speed. The work shows that, on some technical
cases, AIS can eciently tackle the energy scheduling problem in a time
varying scenario and that its performances can overcome those of MILP.
The obtained results are very promising and make the use of immune
based procedures available for real-time management of energy systems.
1
Introduction
Distributed energy generation systems are becoming more and more widespread
in the power grid. This increase is driven by the growing demand of energy
for industrial and civil purposes and by energy market deregulation. In this
way, the classic passive electric grid with few power plants is overcome by an
active network where dispersed nodes can generate power on their own and,
possibly, they offer power to the grid. This solution has many advantages, some
drawbacks and certainly it requires an accurate energy management. Design and
optimization of the energy local network is, in fact, quite different from the one
of the classical energy grid.
In particular, starting from the fact that loads very often requires both electric
and thermal power, the local system can be of Combined Heat and Power (CHP)
type. The combined production of electric and thermal energy leads to the use,
in a positive way, of the thermal energy usually wasted in the thermodynamic
cycle. This energy can be eciently employed to satisfy the requirements of
thermal loads both domestic and or industrials. Since heat cannot be eciently
transferred to far sites, its source must be located close to the load and thus
