Factories for which steam is indispensable typically form an industrial park to share steam heating network (SHN) infrastructure. The energy systems in such parks are usually operated as microgrids. To improve operation efficiency, potential flexible and controllable resources should be utilized. This article proposes a novel method of utilizing the hydraulic inertia of SHNs to improve flexibility for these microgrids. A dynamic hydraulic model is established to characterize the steam storage property of SHNs. Based on the model, a joint dispatch problem formulated as a difference-of-convex problem is developed for the SHN and the electric power network (EPN). The convex-concave procedure method is employed to deal with the nonconvex constraints in the problem. Considering the EPN and the SHN are managed and operated independently by different entities, a modified generalized Benders decomposition (MGBD) algorithm is proposed to solve the problem in a decentralized manner for privacy preservation. Numerical results indicate that utilizing the hydraulic inertia of SHNs can reduce the total operating cost, the peak load of the tie transformer, and distributed renewable energy curtailment. The MGBD method outperforms the baseline methods in terms of convergence and efficiency.

中文翻译：

---

通过电力和蒸汽网络的协同优化提高微电网的灵活性

蒸汽必不可少的工厂通常形成一个工业园区，以共享蒸汽加热网络（SHN）基础设施。这些公园中的能源系统通常以微电网运行。为了提高运营效率，应该利用潜在的灵活可控资源。本文提出了一种利用SHN的水力惯性来提高这些微电网的柔韧性的新方法。建立了动态​​水力模型来表征SHNs的储蒸汽性能。基于该模型，针对SHN和电力网络（EPN）开发了一个联合调度问题，该联合调度问题被设计为凸差问题。采用凸凹过程方法来处理问题中的非凸约束。考虑到EPN和SHN由不同实体独立管理和操作，提出了一种改进的广义Benders分解（MGBD）算法，以分散的方式解决该问题，以保护隐私。数值结果表明，利用SHNs的水力惯性可以降低总运行成本，平局变压器的峰值负荷以及分布式可再生能源的削减。在收敛性和效率方面，MGBD方法优于基准方法。并削减了可再生能源。在收敛性和效率方面，MGBD方法优于基准方法。并削减了可再生能源。在收敛性和效率方面，MGBD方法优于基准方法。