Discussions on the real potential of district heating networks in improving wind power accommodation with temperature feedback as one consideration

Abstract The wind curtailment has been serious in China, reaching 1.66e + 10 kW·h in 2020, since the “heat-led” operation mode of the combined heat and power unit restrains the flexibility of the power systems. The district heating networks, due to thermal storage ability, have a great potential in providing flexibility of the integrated electricity and heat energy systems as well as improving wind power accommodation. However, this paper finds that analysis deviations of evaluating the district heating networks’ real potential may exist in the previous literature since they neglect the temperature feedback mechanism. The mechanism can compensate for the heat supply if the district heating networks’ model is inaccurate, which is a basic method to guarantee the users’ thermal comfort. Ignorance of the compensation results in serious analysis deviations of the systems modelling and optimization. In order to correct the deviations, this paper offers a reliable integrated heat and power dispatch model that simultaneously considers the temperature feedback mechanism and the thermal inertia of the district heating networks, to investigate the actual influences of the district heating networks’ thermal inertia on wind power promotion. Results show that the consideration of the temperature feedback mechanism causes the wind power curtailment to increase by 3.4% to 4.1% in comparison with that when the mechanism is not considered.