A Comprehensive Short-Term Operations Framework for a Disco in Competitive Electricity Markets

A comprehensive operational planning model for a disco operating in a competitive environment is presented in this paper. The operational planning function is a two-level model in which the first level deals with the disco´s activities in the day- ahead stage. In the second level, the model deals with the disco´s activities in the real-time stage. The first level model determines the disco´s operational decisions with regard to its grid purchase, scheduling of any distributed generation (DG) sources owned by it, or purchase scheduling of investor-owned DG, contracting for interruptible loads. These decisions are imposed as binding constraints in the real-time model and the disco seeks to minimize its short-term costs keeping in mind its day-ahead decisions. A case-study is carried out considering the well-known 33-bus distribution system.