Robust Trading Strategies for a Waste-to-Energy Combined Heat and Power Plant in a Day-Ahead Electricity Market

Waste-to-energy (WtE) technology has been used all over the world as it can solve the dilemma of waste management, energy demand, and global warming. Many modern WtE plants are built and operated in a combined heat and power (CHP) mode due to the high overall energy efficiency. This paper studies robust trading strategies for a WtE CHP plant which sells electricity in a day-ahead electricity market and exports heat to a district heating network. Owing to the requirements of the day-ahead electricity market, plant operators must determine the trading strategy one day before real delivery of electricity. However, many key problem parameters including electricity prices, heat demand, and the amount of waste delivered to the plant are uncertain at the day-ahead stage. To derive robust electricity trading strategies for the WtE CHP plant under different types of uncertainty, a two-stage robust optimization model is developed and a solution procedure based on the column-and-constraint generation method is designed. A case study is also performed to illustrate the effectiveness of the robust model and the solution procedure.