AIN SHAMS UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING

Department of Mechanical Power Engineering

4th Year Mech Power Engineering
Fall 2021 Course Code: MEP451 Challenge Assignment
Power Plant Technology

CHALLENGE ASSIGNMENT
A Computer Code to Calculate Load Division and Planning in Mixed
Power Generation

Introduction
In this assignment, you are requested to write a general computer code, using any method you
like (including MS Excel), to plan load division amongst several power generation plants. You
have an 80MW power system consisting of four main Units, where Unit Gen-A is a simple Rankine
cycle; Unit Gen-B is a high efficiency combined cycle power plant; Unit Gen-C is a PV solar plant;
and Unit Gen-D is a wind power plant. To compensate for the fluctuation in the renewable
resource, a fifth 40MW standby Unit is available at a constant price of electricity of 2000 LE/MWh.

You are given the following information:

Unit Load [MW] 0 5 10 15 20

Gen A 1500 1400 1320 1280 1300
Price Gen B 1300 1200 1150 1056 1100
[LE/MWh] Gen C 400 400 400 400 400
Gen D 480 480 480 480 480

The daily load curve for the power plant, and the percentage of availability for Units Gen-C and
Gen-D, are as the follows:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Load MW 20 20 20 25 30 35 40 50 60 70 80 80 80 80 75 70 70 55 45 40 20 20 20 20
% Gen C 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 50 80 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 80 40 20 0 0 0 0 0
% Gen D 58.3 11.5 55.3 49.9 56.7 37.8 80.6 31.8 59.7 15.4 24.3 14.7 27.3 68.3 77.4 74.4 90.6 63.1 69.6 54.4 46.7 49.6 32.8 93.7

You are required to build a computer program to:

i. Devise a loading schedule that would enable economic load sharing

between the four units for total loads between 15 and 80 [MW]. The
standby Unit should be used when there is insufficient generation from the
rest of the four main Units. (The minimum load on any conventional unit
(Gen A and Gen B) is not less than 10 [MW]);

ii. Calculate the total daily costs for generated electricity to meet the
required load; and

iii. Calculate the average cost of electricity for the plant during the day and
compare the result with the cost at the average load.

Deliverables
• This is an individual student challenge. Students should submit individually.
• Generally, present your findings in the form of MS Word report, starting with a cover
page; table of contents; objectives; and result.
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 • Use graphs to illustrate your load division.

• Attach your computer code (in any used software) as an appendix.

Submission Timeline
• 15 March 2022

Grading
This is a bonus assignment.

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