A fully asynchronous distributed economic dispatch for electricity–heat energy management systems

Xiaolan Yuan; Xiang Wu; Haozheng Meng; Xiaolan Yuan; Xiang Wu; Haozheng Meng

doi:10.3934/jimo.2026112

Journal of Industrial and Management Optimization

2026, Volume 22, Issue 6: 3050-3087. doi: 10.3934/jimo.2026112

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Research article

A fully asynchronous distributed economic dispatch for electricity–heat energy management systems

1.
School of Mathematical Sciences, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, 550025, China
2.
School of Automation, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China

Received: 09 February 2026 Revised: 08 May 2026 Accepted: 20 May 2026 Published: 28 May 2026
90C90, 90B35, 68W15

Distributed economic dispatch (DED) methods currently suffer from an over-reliance on synchronous iteration and ideal communication assumptions, which introduce a significant waiting overhead for heterogeneous devices with inconsistent updates and communication delays. Accordingly, this work proposes a fully asynchronous DED algorithm tailored for electricity–heat energy management systems (EH-EMS). Specifically, the EH-EMS model is first established under coupled operational constraints and imbalanced communication networks. Then an optimal response function is formulated to improve computational efficiency while the output constraints remain satisfied. On this basis, an asynchronous distributed dual-consensus (ADDC) algorithm is designed. It allows each device to iterate independently at its own pace, thereby eliminating the waiting time inherent in traditional synchronous schemes. Notably, the ADDC algorithm retains the same variable scale as synchronous DED methods, which further reduces the computational cost in practical applications. In addition, the convergence conditions and exact convergence speed of the ADDC algorithm are provided under the bounded delay and asynchronous update framework. Finally, the simulation results on the EH-EMS 65 test system show that the ADDC algorithm outperforms the compared asynchronous methods in terms of efficiency and performance.
- communication delay,
- asynchronous update,
- distributed algorithm,
- energy management system,
- economic dispatch
Citation: Xiaolan Yuan, Xiang Wu, Haozheng Meng. A fully asynchronous distributed economic dispatch for electricity–heat energy management systems[J]. Journal of Industrial and Management Optimization, 2026, 22(6): 3050-3087. doi: 10.3934/jimo.2026112

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Abstract

Distributed economic dispatch (DED) methods currently suffer from an over-reliance on synchronous iteration and ideal communication assumptions, which introduce a significant waiting overhead for heterogeneous devices with inconsistent updates and communication delays. Accordingly, this work proposes a fully asynchronous DED algorithm tailored for electricity–heat energy management systems (EH-EMS). Specifically, the EH-EMS model is first established under coupled operational constraints and imbalanced communication networks. Then an optimal response function is formulated to improve computational efficiency while the output constraints remain satisfied. On this basis, an asynchronous distributed dual-consensus (ADDC) algorithm is designed. It allows each device to iterate independently at its own pace, thereby eliminating the waiting time inherent in traditional synchronous schemes. Notably, the ADDC algorithm retains the same variable scale as synchronous DED methods, which further reduces the computational cost in practical applications. In addition, the convergence conditions and exact convergence speed of the ADDC algorithm are provided under the bounded delay and asynchronous update framework. Finally, the simulation results on the EH-EMS 65 test system show that the ADDC algorithm outperforms the compared asynchronous methods in terms of efficiency and performance.

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