Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Operational Planning In Combined Heat And Power Systems, Hariharan Gopalakrishnan

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents methodologies for operational planning in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems. The subject of experimentation is the University of Massachusetts CHP system, which is a 22 MWe/640 MBh system for a district energy application. Systems like this have complex energy flow networks due to multiple interconnected thermodynamic components like gas and steam turbines, boilers and heat recovery steam generators and also interconnection with centralized electric grids. In district energy applications, heat and power requirements vary over 24 hour periods (planning horizon) due to changing weather conditions, time-of-day factors and consumer requirements. System thermal performance is highly dependent …