Sharif Digital Repository

This paper examines the strategies of a local supplier of high technology capital goods (or complex product systems, CoPS) in a middle-income developing economy, Iran, in its efforts to acquire technology and catch up with market leaders. The study draws upon both the development and business strategy literatures to develop a novel conceptual framework of latecomer strategy which is then applied to the Iranian firm engaged in the design, production and implementation of electricity generation systems. Although exploratory, the study shows that the firm was able to exploit its linkages with local clients, favorable government policies and a growing domestic demand to overcome barriers to... 

In this paper, a novel fast straightforward method for thermal generating units scheduling is presented. The new method decomposes the solution of the unit commitment (UC) problem into three subproblems. In the first subproblem, the quadratic cost functions of units are linearized and hourly optimum solution of UC is obtained considering all constraints except the minimum up/down time constraints. In the second subproblem, the minimum up/down times are enforced through a novel optimization process by modifying the schedule obtained in the first step. Finally, in the third subproblem, the extra reserve is minimized using a new decommitment algorithm. For testing the proposed method, the... 

The role of gas turbine power plants in electrical energy production has been considerably increased in the last two to three decades. Various methods have been proposed to improve the performance of gas turbine cycles. In this research, two methods, a reheat cycle and a cycle with a reheat and a recuperator, were investigated and compared with a simple cycle. The main objective of this paper is to study the performance of an simple cycle and reheat cycle under actual conditions. In this regard, all processes are treated as actual, and in particular a relatively simple and reliable approach is used to predict the amount of cooling air. The results obtained on the basis of a model developed... 

This paper proposes a dynamic time simulation model for long-term generation capacity investment decisions in the presence of either perfect or imperfect electricity market. The model is based on system dynamics concept in which the dynamics of capacity construction is traced using the forecast of electricity price cleared in the short-term electricity market. Both the perfect and oligopolistic competitions are considered and a market power index is defined to evaluate the competition level of the electricity market. The short-term and long-term dynamic analysis are used to represent the generation firms' behavior in bidding strategy and capacity investment, respectively. Both possibilities... 

In this paper, a self-generation scheduling method for a power generation company (GenCo) with renewable generation units is presented. In the proposed method, locational market prices (LMPs) are calculated using the incomplete information on competing market participants by simulating the ISO's market clearing program and considering the effect of physical limitations of transmission lines. The errors associated with forecasted LMP and renewable production are modeled in the GenCo's generation scheduling using a robust optimization approach. The scheduling problem is modeled as a mixed-integer linear programming which is solved by a CPLEX solver in GAMS. An eight-bus system is employed to... 

The objective of economic dispatch (ED) problem is minimizing the operating cost and finding the point where the total output of the generations equals the total power that must be delivered. In that point the incremental cost of power generation is also equal for all generators. Considering the presence of uncertainty and inaccuracy in the data, fuzzy set theory is an appropriate method to solve the economic dispatch problems. In this paper, a modified fuzzy economic dispatch is formulated to solve the problem under the competitive electricity market uncertainties. Also, available spinning reserve is optimally allocated to market participants. The formulated optimization problem it then... 

In the restructured power systems, generating companies (Genco) are responsible for selling their product in the energy market. In this condition, the question is how much and for what price must each Genco generate to maximize its profit. Therefore, this paper intends to propose a rational method to answer this question. In the proposed methodology, the hourly forecasted market clearing price (FMCP) is used as a reference to model the possible and probable price strategies of Gencos. The forecasted price is the basis of the bidding strategies of each Genco, which can be achieved by solving a bi-level optimization problem using GAMS (general algebraic modeling system) language. The first... 

During last decade, the electricity demand in Iran grows up more than 8% per year due to an increasing economic growth. The main part of this load growth is related to industrial and agricultural demand. At this period, electric utilities tried to provide the peak load demand using all different types of available generating units especially with hydro generation plants. However, moving the time of peak demand occurring from night hours to day time and also increasing of load demand at mid day hours, created a new challenge to hydro-generation planning. As the number of daily peak hours increases from the nightly to daily peak hours and considering that Iran is a sub-tropical country, use of... 

Wind generation is one of the most successful sources of renewable energy for the production of electrical energy. The technical characteristics of wind generation make existing conventional generation models not directly applicable. This paper presents an analytical method for the reliability assessment of the flat-rated wind turbine generation systems. An example of flat rating is that of the MOD-2, a second-generation class of wind turbines. The power-velocity characteristic of the flat-rated wind turbines is employed in this paper to model the operating behavior of the installed wind turbine generators. For wind-power potential estimation, the Weibull distribution model is used. The... 

We have observed that a rotating liquid soap film generates electricity when placed between two non-contact electrodes with a sufficiently large potential difference. In our experiments, suspended liquid film (water + soap film) is formed on the surface of a circular frame, which is forced to rotate in the x−y horizontal plane by a motor. This system is located at the center of two capacitor-like vertical plates to apply an external electric voltage difference in the x-direction. The produced electric current is collected from the liquid film using two conducting electrodes that are separated in the y-direction. We previously reported that a liquid film in an external electric field rotates... 

For distribution grids connected wind power generation, voltage quality is an important issue for the system planning purpose. The operation of wind turbines in the distribution networks may affect the voltage quality offered to the consumers. One of the most important considerations is the effect on the voltage profile, i.e. the induced slow voltage variations, which are the subject of this paper. The wind turbines can be operated in two modes: constant-speed and variable-speed. Each one of these cases has different impact on steady state voltage of distribution grids. For evaluation of these impacts, we have simulated SCIG generator that works in constant-speed operation and DFIG generator... 

The application of the brushless doubly-fed machine (BDFM) is in wind power generation in harsh conditions, where reliability is important. In this paper, eddy current losses in a BDFM in four categories: a) the rotor classic eddy current losses, b) stator classic eddy current losses, c) rotor excessive eddy current losses, and d) stator excessive eddy current losses, are calculated for single frequency of the rotor and double frequency of the stator magnetic fields  

Due to deterioration of fossil fuel and policy directives on greenhouse gas mitigation, wind power generation has been widely developed in recent years. This has raised many issues in terms of power system operation, dynamics, stability and etc. This paper reviews the effect of different kinds of wind turbines on power system stability. Since there are no existing surveys in this area, it provides a comprehensive overview in transient and dynamic stability. The contribution of this survey is to provide a comparison to determine which kinds of wind turbines is better from the system stability point of view. Furthermore, the effects of wind power generation with energy storage systems are... 

Today, the production of energy and electricity is one of the major concerns of mankind. Electricity generation by solar energy is considered as one of the alternatives to fossil fuels. Solar chimneys mechanism is based on a natural phenomenon. In this process the solar energy heat up the earth's surface and the surrounding air. Due to the density difference between cold air and warm air, heated air ascends and causes air circulation. In this study, mathematical modelling of solar chimney and governing equations of this system will be discussed. In order to validate the numerical results, upwind velocity in chimney has been compared with a reliable reference results. As well as, the... 

Portfolio theory has found its model in numerous engineering applications for optimizing the electrical generation mix of an electricity area. However, to have better performance of this theory, this paper presents a new heuristic method as known modified artificial bee colony (MABC) to portfolio optimization problem. Moreover, we consider both dis-patchable and non-dis-patchable constrains variables and energy sources. Note that the proposed MABC method uses a Chaotic Local Search (CLS) to enhance the self searching ability of the original ABC algorithm. Resulting, in this paper a portfolio theory-based MABC model that explicitly distinguishes between electricity generation (energy),... 

This paper mainly focuses on operational reliability studies of modern power systems taking into consideration the effects of energy storage systems (ESSs). The aim is to develop a new evaluation tool to assess the effects of different factors such as penetration rate, operational strategies and capacities of the ESSs in determining the role of these systems as an operating reserve resource. In this regard, at first, some modifications are made to the PJM method aimed to precisely model the short-term variability in output generation of wind farms in reliability studies. Then, this algorithm is employed to examine the effects of ESSs operating strategies in operational reliability level of... 

This experimental work is an attempt to identify the most significant parameters influencing heat transfer enhancement in annular flow with outer grooved cylinder and rotating inner cylinder. This type of flow known as Taylor-Couette flow has many industrial applications such as electrical power generators and rotating machineries. A comprehensive review of the previous works on flow regimes, heat transfer and pressure drop in grooved channels is provided. The experiments are conducted based on four different factors including Taylor number, 0