New approach for optimal electricity planning and dispatching with hourly time-scale air quality and health considerations.
Integrating accurate air quality modeling with decision making is hampered by complex atmospheric physics and chemistry and its coupling with atmospheric transport. Existing approaches to model the physics and chemistry accurately lead to significant computational burdens in computing the response of atmospheric concentrations to changes in emissions profiles. By integrating a reduced form of a fully coupled atmospheric model within a unit commitment optimization model, we allow, for the first time to our knowledge, a fully dynamical approach toward electricity planning that accurately and rapidly minimizes both cost and health impacts. The reduced-form model captures the response of spatially resolved air pollutant concentrations to changes in electricity-generating plant emissions on an hourly basis with accuracy comparable to a comprehensive air quality model. The integrated model allows for the inclusion of human health impacts into cost-based decisions for power plant operation. We use the new capability in a case study of the state of Georgia over the years of 2004-2011, and show that a shift in utilization among existing power plants during selected hourly periods could have provided a health cost savings of $175.9 million dollars for an additional electricity generation cost of $83.6 million in 2007 US dollars (USD2007). The case study illustrates how air pollutant health impacts can be cost-effectively minimized by intelligently modulating power plant operations over multihour periods, without implementing additional emissions control technologies.
School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0205; paul.kerl@gatech.edu.
Paul Y
PY
Kerl
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0340;
Wenxian
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0242-6411
W
Zhang
School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0615;
Juan B
JB
Moreno-Cruz
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0340; School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0100; Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences, Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas, Patras, Greece; Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens, Athens, Greece;
Athanasios
A
Nenes
School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0100;
Matthew J
MJ
Realff
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0355;
Armistead G
AG
Russell
School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0205;
Joel
J
Sokol
School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0205; School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0345.
Valerie M
VM
Thomas
D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational / Q000032:analysis* / Q000633:toxicity; D004560:Electricity; D005845:Georgia; D006801:Humans; D016272:Occupational Health; D010934:Planning Techniques; D011210:Power Plants
D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational
air pollution; electricity generation; energy policy; externalities; health impacts