Optimal economic power transfers

The mathematical models used in a computer program for the analysis of economic power transfers are presented. The program computes fuel-to-fuel transfers between explicitly identified utilities in an interconnected power system. The computational procedure used by the program is carried out by four basic modules: (1) bus grouping to reduce the size of the network for computational purposes (since the entire network is modeled, any interface in the network can be specified, not just the company/pool ties, thus allowing all potential transmission bottlenecks to be considered); (2) initial economic dispatch, including allocation of hydraulic generation; (3) dispatch adjustment, reflecting company operating policies in the event of transmission overloads caused by the initial economic dispatch; and (4) economic transaction optimization superimposed on the operating conditions arrived at in (3). Results obtained for a realistic test case demonstrate the ability of the program to select an optimal power transfer pattern