Operational Planning and Bidding for District Heating Systems with Uncertain Renewable Energy Production

In countries with an extended use of district heating (DH), the integrated operation of DH and power systems can increase the flexibility of the power system, achieving a higher integration of renewable energy sources (RES). DH operators can not only provide flexibility to the power system by acting on the electricity market, but also profit from the situation to lower the overall system cost.

However, the operational planning and bidding includes several uncertain components at the time of planning: electricity prices as well as heat and power production from RES. In this publication, we propose a planning method based on stochastic programming that supports DH operators by scheduling the production and creating bids for the day-ahead and balancing electricity markets.

We apply our solution approach to a real case study in Denmark and perform an extensive analysis of the production and trading behavior of the DH system. The analysis provides insights on system costs, how DH system can provide regulating power, and the impact of RES on the planning.