Coordination of Interdependent Natural Gas and Electricity Infrastructures for Firming the Variability of Wind Energy in Stochastic Day-Ahead Scheduling

In this paper, the coordination of constrained electricity and natural gas infrastructures is considered for firming the variability of wind energy in electric power systems. The stochastic security-constrained unit commitment is applied for minimizing the expected operation cost in the day-ahead scheduling of power grid. The low cost and sustainable wind energy could substitute natural gas-fired units, which are constrained by fuel availability and emission. Also, the flexibility and quick ramping capability of natural gas units could firm the variability of wind energy. The electricity and natural gas network constraints are considered in the proposed model (referred to as EGTran) and Benders decomposition is adopted to check the natural gas network feasibility. The autoregressive moving average (ARMA) time-series model is used to simulate wind speed forecast errors in multiple Monte Carlo scenarios. Illustrative examples demonstrate the effectiveness of EGTran for firming the variable wind energy by coordinating the constrained electricity and natural gas delivery systems.