Combined heat and power storage planning

Integrating storages into combined heat and power systems can increase the flexibility of both energy supplies. However, efficient tools are required to coordinate storages at the planning stage, starting from the transmission network. Storage planning for such systems involves both electric power and heat storages, which, in this multi energy environment, poses two key technical challenges, namely 1) accurately describing operational strategies for planning and 2) combating operational uncertainty that can propagate across the coupling of multiple energies. The proposed storage planning routine addresses these challenges by embedding unit commitment to replace power flow, which is typically used in planning, for more accurate modeling of operational strategies, and uses robust optimization to account for operational uncertainty. The robust storage planning is solved using an improved column and constraint generation algorithm that does not require the sub-problems to be feasible. The proposed approach is demonstrated on a 14-bus and a 39-bus system. The results show that the plan for combined heat and power storages outperforms the plans for sole-power and heat storage. The results also show that uncertainty in one energy can impact the balance of the other. This demonstrates the value of planning infrastructure in an energy-integrated manner for multi-energy systems.