Object-oriented simulation for primary reserve scheduling in a combined cycle power plant

This manuscript describes a study on primary spinning reserve scheduling in a 420 MW combined cycle power plant, conducted by a convenient use of Object-Oriented Modelling and Simulation (OOMS). This allowed to optimise the control system to comply with the network code requirements in the presence of dynamic constraints posed by the machinery. An accurate simulation model was tailored to represent only the plant physical parts strictly related to the problem. This allowed to test different control solutions, and to find the best one right from the system engineering phase, with quite moderate an effort, thus drastically reducing the commissioning time, and helping also in the definition of the test schedule. Selected simulation and experimental results are presented and discussed, as both a validation of the model, and a proof for the efficacy of the adopted approach.