Conférence Programme Gaspard Monge - PGMODAYS 2025, Palaiseau (France). 18-19 November 2025
Summary:
Nuclear power plants have historically been inflexible generators, designed for baseload operation, generating a steady output of high power at low variable cost. This conflicts with the flexibility demands that high renewable penetration impose over power systems. However, it is possible, as some countries like France demonstrate daily [1, 2] , to operate nuclear power plants in a more flexible manner to perform load-following operations. Due to the unique characteristics of nuclear reactions as heat sources, reactors are subject to certain constraints, such as Xenon transients, which require specific modeling to represent their behavior [3]. We present a tight formulation for this constraint, which enhances existing literature formulations [4, 5].
We also present novel formulations for modeling the minimum stable time problem with more nuance. We finally provide a case study based on the RTS-GMLC to show the increase in computational efficiency of our improved formulation and the advantages presented by our novel formulations.
Spanish layman's summary:
Las centrales nucleares pueden operar con mayor flexibilidad para adaptarse a la energía renovable. Este trabajo presenta modelos mejorados que representan mejor sus limitaciones físicas y aumentan la eficiencia computacional en la simulación de su funcionamiento flexible.
English layman's summary:
Nuclear power plants can operate more flexibly to complement renewable energy. This work introduces improved models that better capture physical constraints and boost computational efficiency in simulating flexible nuclear plant operation.
Keywords: Power system modeling, Renewable energy integration, Unit commitment, Nuclear power plants
Publication date: 18-Nov-2025.
Citation:
F. Labora Gómez, A. Ramos, "An Efficient and Tight Model for Nuclear Power Plant Constraints in Flexible Operation", presented at Conférence Programme Gaspard Monge - PGMODAYS 2025, Palaiseau, France, 18-19 November 2025
IIT-25-334C_abstract
