Load carrying capability of regional electricity-heat energy systems: Definitions, characteristics, and optimal value evaluation

Evaluating the load carrying capability of regional electricity-heat energy systems is of great significance to its planning and construction. Existing methods evaluate energy supply capability without considering load characteristics between various users. Besides, the impact of integrated demand response is not fully considered. To address these problems, this paper builds a load carrying capability interval model, which uses reliability as a security constraint and considers integrated demand response. An evaluation method for the optimal load carrying capability considering uncertainties of load growth is proposed. First, this paper defines energy supply capability, available capacity, and load carrying capability. Interval models are built to achieve the visualization display of these indices. Their characteristics are studied and the impact factors of interval boundary are analyzed. Secondly, a two-layer optimization model for the evaluation of optimal load carrying capability is constructed, considering the uncertainties of load growth. The upper-layer model aims at optimizing the sum of load carrying capability benefit, integrated demand response cost, and load curtailment penalty. The lower-layer model maximizes energy supply capability. Thereafter, the lower-layer model is linearized based on piecewise linearization and the least square method. The computation efficiency is greatly enhanced. In the case study, a real regional electricity-heat energy system is used to validate the proposed model and method.