Optimization of generator maintenance scheduling with consideration on the equivalent operation hours

Abstract

In order for the optimal solution of generators’ annual maintenance scheduling to be applicable to the actual power system it is crucial to incorporate the constraints related to the equivalent operation hours (EOHs) in the optimization model. However, most of the existing researches on the optimal maintenance scheduling are based on the assumption that the maintenances are to be performed periodically regardless of the operation hours. It is mainly because the computation time to calculate EOHs increases exponentially as the number of generators becomes larger. In this paper an efficient algorithm based on demand grouping method is proposed to calculate the approximate EOHs in an acceptable computation time. The method to calculate the approximate EOHs is incorporated into the optimization model for the maintenance scheduling with consideration on the EOHs of generators. The proposed method is successfully applied to the actual Korean power system and shows significant improvement when compared to the result of the maintenance scheduling algorithm without consideration on EOHs.