Multi-timescale and multi-objective power dispatch strategy incorporating air pollutant temporal and spatial distribution control

Abstract Most existing environmental/economic dispatch power dispatch studies only focus on emission minimization. However, air pollutant temporal and spatial distribution (APTSD) control which considers atmospheric dispersion would be more effective, in terms of air pollution mitigation. This paper proposes a power dispatch strategy which incorporates APTSD and stimulates the potential of atmospheric environment capacity (AEC). Firstly, an APTSD model is constructed to help system operators understand how thermal power generation influences the ground level concentration (GLC), which considers the diurnal variation of the atmospheric boundary layer. Then, a multi-timescale framework is developed to accommodate the variability and uncertainty of meteorological conditions. A day-ahead sub-model and an intraday sub-model are integrated, which reduce generation cost (GC), emission of carbon dioxide (EC), and implement APTSD control of sulfur dioxide simultaneously. In particular, the AEC margin for TPPs is fully exploited to extract compromise solution, realizing a dynamic trade-off between different objectives. Case studies are first conducted on an IEEE 39 model, demonstrating that the use of AECM can reduce total GC and EC by 2.54% and 5.36% respectively, with the same power demands being satisfied and a better air quality. Advantages of the proposed APTSD strategy over the traditional emission reduction strategy are further demonstrated by practical application, which shows that not only is the average GLC reduced by 19.16%, but also the total GC and total EC are reduced by 107,460 dollars and 1450 tons, respectively.