Fuel-constrained sustainable power and natural gas scheduling of a hydrothermal system

This manuscript presents optimum sustainable natural gas and power scheduling of a hydrothermal system considering carbon capture and fuel constraints. Power to gas technology comprising a carbon capture unit, electrolyser, hydrogen storage unit and methanation process, is utilised to provide natural gas demand by utilising CO2 captured from thermal generating units and hydrogen produced by the electrolyser. Because of the progressive reduction of fossil fuels, profitable use of obtainable fuel for electric power production has been a major concern for the electric power utility. The fossil-fuel-fired power plant must operate within its fuel restrictions as well as contractual constraints. Demand response program is applied for power and gas demand to smooth the demand curve. This problem is solved with and without considering fuel constraints for different scenarios by utilising a self-organising hierarchical particle swarm optimiser with time-varying acceleration coefficients, grey wolf optimisation, and differential evolution. It is comprehended from numerical results that the minimum cost acquired without fuel constraints is less than the minimum cost acquired with fuel constraints. For the test system, the minimum cost attained without considering fuel constraints is almost 4.6% lower than the minimum cost attained considering fuel constraints.