Renewable Energy and Economic Dispatch Integration Within the Honduras Electricity Market

A critical aspect of power systems is the generation cost of plants in producing the electrical energy required by consumers, this cost will be finally reflected in the monthly consumption bill. A nonoptimal dispatch will produce high tariffs while a well-designed dispatch will result in the lowest generation costs and, therefore, the lowest possible tariffs. The purpose of the present study is precisely to design a strategy to find the generation plan that produces the lowest possible costs and then make a comparison between an optimal economic dispatch that considers generation and transmission without energy contracts versus the dispatch that includes the 2017 energy purchase contracts signed by the state of Honduras. To achieve this goal, this study formulates the cost equation, capacity, and transmission line constraints, and then applies the nonlinear programming techniques to solve it.