Development a New Flexibility Index Suitable for Power System Operational Planning

Power system flexibility is an important characteristic in both power system planning and operation, which should be evaluated and maintained in the desired value. On the other hand, more renewable energy integration leads to increasing uncertainty and variability in the power system. Therefore, the power system should have the sufficient ability to overcome the adverse effects of uncertainty and variability named as flexibility, which should be improved by suitable tools such as adequate reserve, fast ramp up/down generation sources and suitable energy storage capacity. Power system flexibility evaluation is the main task that needs suitable indices to indicate the level of system flexibility correctly. In the current paper, a well-known system flexibility index named normalized flexibility index, which is used for power system planning horizon is modified to use for the operational planning time zone. In this concept, the flexibility index is separated into two components, each of them indicating the ability of the power system to withstand upward/downward net-load uncertainty and variability. In the further, this is shown these two components are the same as the upward/downward system reserve and can be converted to economic value simply. So, this concept facilitates the economic trade-off between operation cost and system flexibility, improving cost to achieve the best level of system flexibility.