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* C is capable of 50 MW at $120/MWh (from 200 to 250 MW of system power).
At the expected demand is 150 MW (a vertical line on the graph), unit A will be engaged at full 120 MW power, unit B will run at the '''dispatch level''' of 30 MW, unit C will be kept in reserve. The area under the dispatch curve to the left of this line represents the cost per hour of operation (ignoring the startup costs, $30 * 120 + $60 * 30 = 5,400), the incremental cost of the next MWh of electricity ($60 in the example, represented by a horizontal line on the graph) is called '''system lambda''' (thus another name for the curve, ''system lambda curve'').
In real systems the cost per MWh usually is not constant, and the lines of the dispatch curve are therefore not horizontal (typically the marginal cost of power increases with the dispatch level, although for the [[combined cycle power plant]]s there are multiple cost curves depending on the mode of operation.
== Minutes-ahead operation ==
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