Gas-Power Coordination: From Day-Ahead Scheduling to Actual Operation

The power and natural-gas industries have narrowed the time differences between daily power market clearing and natural-gas market clearing. This facilitates the gas-power coordination in day-ahead scheduling. However, using natural-gas-fired power units to balance the variability of renewable energy production may cause fluctuations in natural-gas demand, which result in risks to the natural-gas system in actual operation. As such, gas-power coordination at all time is highly desirable. We analyze the coordinated operation of power and natural-gas systems at the scheduling stage and in actual operation. We assume that the two systems are operated independently, but with information interchange. We use a Lagrangian decomposition approach to identify an operational equilibrium involving the two systems. Numerical results on two test systems verify the value of gas-power coordination in actual operation.