Combined heat and power economic dispatch: A direct solution

This article presents a new algorithm for the solution of the combined heat and power economic dispatch problem, encountered in systems having simple cycle co-generation units with quadratic cost functions. An explicit formula is developed for computing the system-wide incremental costs corresponding to the optimal dispatch. The novelty of the proposed dispatch procedure is that it avoids the use of iterative search schemes for this crucial step. The method is illustrated using the test cases taken from the literature as well as some new ones.