Operation and economy of a refuse‐fired generating system with electricity wheeling service

Electric power markets have been partially liberalized and liberalization will be proceeding steadily. On the other hand, refuse‐fired generating systems (RGS) are constructed in many municipal corporations as on‐site power sources. This paper discusses the operation of an RGS which can transfer its excess energy to consumers through the electricity wheeling service of the electric utility. The RGS is operated by the dynamic programming method under the constraints of RGS operation and electricity wheeling service. In the DP method, the estimation function is the annual total electricity charge of both the RGS and the consumers, and the control variable is the residual amount in the refuse pit. A university, hospitals, welfare apartment houses, and their combinations are selected as consumers. The main results obtained are as follows: (1) electricity wheeling service is more economical than the absence of electricity wheeling service when the annual demand of the consumer is higher than 70% of the excess energy of RGS; (2) it is more economical as the load factor increases if the annual demand is the same; (3) the most economical consumer is the combination of four hospitals and five welfare apartment houses, for which the total electricity charge can be reduced to 84% of that in the absence of wheeling service. It is concluded that the total electricity charge of the RGS with electricity wheeling service could be decreased considerably by selecting the consumers appropriately. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 146(1): 59–69, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10211