Computer-Aided Dispatching and Operations Planning for an Electric Utility with Multiple Types of Generation

The paper describes a computer program that has been developed to dispatch power from several alternative sources, including a pumped storage unit, three interchange contracts, two hydro plants, and sixteen steam plants. The program yields the optimum hourly schedule based on a forty-eight hour load prediction. Long-run effects are explicitly taken into account by coordinating three separate subprograms: hourly optimization over forty-eight hours, daily optimization over one month, and monthly optimization over one year.