A Study on Optimal Electric Load Distribution and Generator Operating Mode Using Dynamic Programming

Since the oil crisis in 1970, a great deal of effort has been made to develop automatic electric load sharing systems as a part of the efforts to save energy. A large scale electric generating system composes more than two generators whose characteristics may be different. When such a system is operated individually or in parallel, the lagrange multiplier's method has difficulty in achieving optimal load distribution because generators usually have the limitations of the operating range with inequality constraints. Therefore, a suitable operating mode of generators has to be decided according to the selection of the generators to meet electric power requirements at the minimum cost. In this study, a method which solves the optimal electric load distribution problem using the dynamic programming technique is proposed. This study also shows that the dynamic programming method has an advantage in dealing with the optimal load distribution problem under the limitations of the operating range with inequality constraints including generator operation mode. In this study, generator operating cost curve of second order equation by shop trial test results of diesel generators are used. The results indicate that the proposed method can be applied to the ship's electric generating system.