Electric utility expansion planning in the presence of existing capacity: A nondifferentiable, convex programming approach (Q1088898)

This paper is about mathematical modeling of capacity expansion planning in the electric utility industry. In the absence of any existing capacity, an optimal expansion plan for a single period can be determined with an ordinary breakeven analysis applied to the load-duration curve. However, if some existing capacity already exists, which is the usual case, then the problem is considerably more complex. This paper shows how to formulate this problem as a convex program, one in which the load duration curve is directly incorporated into the model as a monotone decreasing function. The algorithm is shown to be finitely convergent and several examples are provided which demonstrate the efficiency of the approach.