Abstract:
The rapid growth of distributed energy resources has increased flexibility demand in the distribution system. Energy hubs (EHs) have received extensive attention due to their great flexibility potential in multi-energy dispatching operation and energy management. This paper established three value evaluation indicators of EH flexibility including the renewable energy source (RES) curtailment, load shedding, and line congestion, from the perspective of distribution network operation. Based on evaluation indicators, the value brought by the EH flexibility to the regional power distribution system was analyzed. First, the EH with the combined cooling heating and power was considered, and its flexible coupling relationship was established based on the coupling matrix. Then, the regional energy system operation optimization model considering the uncertainty of RES and the coupled power flow constraints was established. The three evaluation indicators were embedded into the objective function as penalty items, so as to schedule the EH flexibility as much as possible to avoid the occurrence of penalty. Finally, a penalty convex-concave procedure (PCCP) algorithm was designed to deal with the non-convex terms in the power flow constraints. The case study shows that the EH flexibility that considers gas-electric coupling on the source side and electric-heat-cold, gas-heat- cold complementarity on the load side plays a positive role in promoting the RES consumption, avoiding load loss and line congestion.