Integration of electricity and natural gas systems - identification of coordinating parameters

The growing integration between the electricity and natural gas (NG) sectors has highlighted the need to adequately model the relationships involved between them. Nowadays, the operational planning of electric power and NG systems is carried out in decoupled manner, i.e., only coordinating parameters, such as NG prices and total NG availability for electricity generation, are used in the optimization procedure. Then, the existing interactions between both energy systems are modeled by means of fixed coordinating parameters. Thus the dynamics of this interdependence is not taken into account. This paper studies the impact of these parameters on the optimization of the integrated operation of electrical and NG systems. To do this, the results of the integrated and decoupled optimal dispatch (single time period) of electricity and NG systems are analyzed and compared. The economic assessment is performed using a simplified version of the Argentine electricity and NG systems. The results show the economic inefficiencies arising from the decoupled optimization of both systems.