============================== Thermal Module ============================== The thermal module manages the thermal plants and their contribution to the power balance. A thermal power plant might represent a range of different power plant technologies, such as gas, oil, nuclear, etc. Similarly to a :class:`market step `, a :class:`thermal plant ` has a maximum production capacity, a minimum production level and a marginal cost which are input as time series. In addition, a thermal plant can be configured with a ramping limit, startup costs and a dynamic response. Thermal plants can be created using the :meth:`create_thermal_plant ` method. See the :ref:`model documentation ` for information on the mathematical modeling details, the :class:`module API ` for details on the module's configuration parameters and input/output time series and the :class:`thermal plant API ` for the static thermal plant properties. .. note:: Thermal plants are not loaded by default when using the `ltm2trident` conversion tool. Use the option `--load_thermal` to load market steps that represent thermal plants as thermal plants. Note that in some versions of the LTM v10 dataset format, it is not possible to distinguish thermal plants from other market steps with power type 10. Thermal plants are identified by having either power type 3 or by having power type 10 together with startup costs. This is not relevant when using the Trident API to create thermal plants. ------------------------------- Ramping ------------------------------- Ramping limits how fast the production of a thermal plant can change. This limit can be set on the thermal plant object in the logical model. It is possible to disable the feature for all plants by using a configuration parameter. ------------------------------- Startup Costs ------------------------------- Startup costs sets a penalty on starting the thermal plant from zero production. This feature is activated for a thermal plant if the startup cost time series is set. It is possible to disable the feature for all plants by using a configuration parameter. .. _thermal_module_guide_dynamic_capacity: ------------------------------- Dynamic Thermal Capacity ------------------------------- Sometimes it can be reasonable to assume that the power production does not change immediately in response to higher or lower prices, but rather adjust gradually over time when the price level is high or low. There are three dynamic response types available: momentary (default), asymptotic and linear. The response type can be set on the thermal plant object in the logical model. .. image:: resources/dynamic_thermal_capacity.png :target: /_images/dynamic_thermal_capacity.png All three response types are illustrated in the figure above. The production changes for all three response types when the price changes. However, the change is not instantaneous for the linear and asymptotic response. In addition to the dynamic response type, the linear and asymptotic response can be adjusted by using the time_delta configuration parameter and the inertia time series. The time delta is how far back in time to sample the previous production when computing the current production limit. It must be larger than the decision problem length. The inertia time series. Both the time delta and the inertia parameter affects the response time: A smaller time delta makes the response faster, while a smaller inertia makes the response slower.