Reliability assessment of integrated electricity and district cooling systems considering the thermal dynamics of pipelines and buildings

Abstract

The tight interactions between energy sectors increase the risk of affecting integrated energy systems (IESs); therefore, reliability assessment is important for identifying vulnerability and improving security in IESs. In the literature, the network topology, transmission loss, and distinguishing thermal dynamics in IESs are seldom addressed for reliability assessment, rendering the results unreliable. To bridge this gap, an integrated electricity and district cooling model is formulated for IESs that involves elaborate network topologies and transmission losses to reflect their impacts on reliability characteristics. In addition, the evaluation of reliability indices for district cooling systems is improved by considering the thermal inertia characteristics of buildings and the transportation delay of circulating water to characterize the reliability levels of district cooling systems more accurately. Numerical results using a 12-node case validate the improved accuracy of the proposed reliability assessment method and reveal the potential of district cooling systems for enhancing the reliability of power systems.

Keywords

• Integrated electricity and district cooling system
• Load shedding
• Reliability assessment
• Sequential Monte Carlo simulation
• Thermal dynamics