Economic dispatch towards maximising social welfare in a re-regulated environment

With the participation of nonutility generation in a fast-growing energy market, a contracted minimum energy (CME) constrained economic dispatch problem has emerged and became a common concern between the host utility, independent power producer and regulatory body. This paper formulates the CME constrained dispatch problem and presents an optimisation technique based on duality theory. By introducing the concept of subsidised incremental cost, we have interpreted the essence of CME constraints and set up a modified equal incremental criterion under new operation environment and open energy market.