Electric Power Systems Research 72 (2004) 245252

A fuzzy optimization-based approach to large scale thermal unit commitment

M.M. El-Saadawia, , M.A. Tantawia , E. Tawkb
a

Elect. Power and Machines Department, Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt b Engineering Laboratories, Mech. and Elect. Department, Ministry of Irrigation, Egypt Received 11 August 2003; received in revised form 10 November 2003; accepted 24 April 2004 Available online 18 August 2004

Abstract This paper presents a new fuzzy optimization based approach to solve the thermal unit commitment (UC) problem. In this approach load demand, reserve requirements, and production cost are expressed by fuzzy set notations, while unit generation limits, ramp rate limits, and minimum up/down limits are handled as crisp constraints. A fuzzy optimization based algorithm is then, developed to nd the optimal solution by using fuzzy operations and if-then rules. Some heuristics such as dividing hourly load and generating units into levels are used to speed the solution. The approach has been applied to a 38 units thermal power system. The results are compared with that obtained by the dynamic programming (DP), the Lagrangianerelaxation (LR), constraint logic programming (CLP), and simulated annealing (SA) methods. The achieved results prove the effectiveness, and validity of the proposed approach to solve the large-scale UC problem. The effects of unit ramp rate limits and minimum up/down times are also, investigated. 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.
Keywords: Optimization; Thermal unit; Dynamic programming; Fuzzy approach; Unit commitment

1. Introduction Unit commitment (UC) is aimed at scheduling the generating units to serve the load demand at minimum operating cost while meeting all unit and system constraints. The UC problem often comprises thousands of 01 decision values as well as continuous variables, and wide spectrum equality and inequality constraints. Because of the large economic benets that could result from the improving unit scheduling, a considerable attention has been devoted to develop problem solution methods. Various mathematical programming and heuristic based approaches such as dynamic programming [1], neural networks [2], simulated annealing [3], evolutionary programming [4], constraint logic programming [5], genetic algorithms [67], and Lagrangiane relaxation [810] approaches have been devoted to solve the UC problem. It is noticed that each of the previous methods has involved one

or more difculties such as: Reliance on heuristic, hence sub-optimal solutions. High computational time for medium and large-scale systems. Moreover, most of the previous methods dealt with the problem as a crisp treatment (requiring to be satised exactly or crisply all the time) although some of its parts are imprecise due to predicted demand variations (roughly values), this may lead to uneconomic scheduling or non-feasible solutions [11]. Many researches aimed to apply the fuzzy systems as effective alternatives for solving the UC problem [1115]. The use of fuzzy systems avoids the non-feasible solutions by representing a membership function for each uncertainty (objective or constraint). In Ref. [11], the problem was represented by mathematical fuzzy optimization model, and then it was converted to a crisp optimization one and solved by using LR approach. The ramping rate and minimum up/down constraints have not been involved. The method may suffer the

Corresponding author.

0378-7796/$ see front matter 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.epsr.2004.04.009

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non-feasible solutions and complex computations due to the dual nature of LR approach. In Refs. [12,14], fuzzy-neural network approaches were used to solve the problem. The inputs to the fuzzy-neural network (i.e. load demands) were considered as fuzzy variables. Then, a fuzzy neural making decision has been developed to learn the neural network. The fuzzy-neural networks have not involve any optimization technique, hence they suffer sub-optimal solutions. The authors have developed a heuristic approach to solve the UC problem [15], but that approach has ignored some crisp constraints such as unit ramp rate limits and minimum up/down time limits. In this paper, the UC problem is expressed by mathematical fuzzy model to include the fuzzy variables, and a fuzzy optimization based approach is proposed to solve the problem. The solution approach divides the generating units into groups to minimize the size of calculations and the search space. A crisp economic dispatch is incorporated with the approach to handle crisp constraints. The effects of unit ramp rate limits and minimum up/down time limits on the fuzzy optimization based approach have been investigated.

is: o (a) = Min(w1 (a), w2 (a), . . . , wr (a)) (5)

The optimal decision a can be obtained by verifying the following relation: o (a ) = Max(o (a)) Notes: wi = 1, if a constraint Bi is neglected, i.e. wi = 0, then and Bwi = 1, if the weight of a constraint Bi is assumed to be equal to unity thus, Bwi = Bi . 3. Problem formulation To clearly present the problem formulation, the crisp model will be introduced, and followed by the fuzzy version. 3.1. Crisp problem formulation (6)

2. A background about the used fuzzy concepts Fuzzy set theory provides a natural platform to model fuzzy relationships such as essentially or roughly variables, and adds the dimension of fuzziness or uncertainty to the conventional set theory. This section introduces denitions for some fuzzy concepts used in the proposed approach. A fuzzy set A(x) is dened by a grade of membership function, A (X), where A (X) [0,1]. For two fuzzy sets A and B: AB (x) = Max(A (x), B (x)) AB (x) = Min(A (x), B (x)) (1) (2)

The objective function and associated constraints of the thermal UC problem are given as follows: (A) Objective function
T N

Min C = Min
t =1 i=1

[Ut (i) OCi [Pt (i)] (7)

+SCi (1 Ut 1 (i))] (B) System constraints

N

Load balance :
i=1

Ut (i) Pi (i) = Pd (t )
N

(8)

Spinning reserve :
i=1

Ut (i) Rct (i) R(t )

(9)

The union () and intersection () operations represent the OR, and AND operators, respectively. Dene a universe of n alternatives, A = (al , a2 , . . ., an ), and a set of r objectives and constraints, B = (B1 , B2 , . . ., Br ), let Bi (a) is the membership degree of an alternative a in an objective or constraint Bi , and O is a decision function to satisfy all objectives and constraints simultaneously, i.e. O = B1 B2 . . . Br (3)

(C) Unit constraints: The thermal unit constraints include generation output limits, ramp rate limits, and minimum up/down time limits. These constraints are handled as crisp constraints either during executing the economic dispatch or at renement stage as will be discussed later. 3.2. Fuzzy problem formulation 3.2.1. Denition of the fuzzy variables and quantities in UC The load demand depends on weather variables, social behavior of customers, etc. The forecasted demand is imprecise, thus it can be described as a fuzzy quantity. Any variable associated with the system load will be considered as a fuzzy variable. Thus, unit generation production cost and spinning reserve are fuzzy quantities. To obtain an optimal commitment scheduling under the fuzzy environments: production cost, load demand equal-

With assumption that wi (x) [0,1], is the weight of the objective or constraint Bi , then the degree of membership function is expressed by: Bwi = Max( wi , Bi ) (4)

where wi is the complement of wi . Then, the overall membership degree of the alternative a for performing the objectives and constraints simultaneously

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ity constraint, and spinning reserve inequality relation constraint are all expressed in fuzzy set notations. On other hand, the crisp quantities include: limits on unit outputs, minimum up/down times, and ramp rate constraints. 3.2.2. Denition of thresholds and membership functions for fuzzy variables The values of thresholds are obtained by last experiences for the operator. These values can be dened as follows [11]. 3.2.2.1. Load balance membership function. The predicted system load deviation is usually from 2 to 5% [10]. The load balance constraint can be represented by the following fuzzy equality relation:
N i=1

3.2.2.3. Cost membership function. The cost function should be essentially smaller than or equal to some aspiration level ideal cost, C0 . Thus the cost function can be expressed in fuzzy inequality relation as follows: C0 (t ) C(t ) (14)

Ut (i) Pi (i) = Pd (t )

(10)

The thresholds for system demand can be dened as follows: Nominal demand: having the maximum degree of grade in membership function i.e. degree one. The nominal value for demand equals the mean value of the predicted demand. Range of predicted load variation ( d(t)): the maximum range of variation of the hourly predicted demand. It has the least value of membership degree, i.e. degree zero. In this study, d(t) is taken equal to 5%. The membership function of the above fuzzy equality ( =) can be described as: 1 (Pd ) d d ( ) = ( Pd ) 1 d 0 1 if = Pd if Pd d < < Pd (11) if Pd < < Pd + else where d

The thresholds of the cost are: The ideal cost level (C0 ): it has the maximum grade of membership i.e. degree one. Selecting this level may be subjective and dependent on specic practice; one good candidate for the ideal cost (C0 ) is the cost of the crisp problem with nominal system demand and reserve requirements. The highest acceptable cost level (C0 + C): it has the least degree of membership, i.e. degree zero. It can be determined by choosing C as a certain percentage of C0 based on the operators experience. In this study, C is taken equal to 20% of C0 based on authors experience. The fuzzy ) can be described by the cost membership inequality ( function as follows: 1 if 0 C0 (C0 + C ) c () = (15) if C0 < C0 + C C 0 else where

4. A proposed solution strategy The proposed solution strategy consists of three stages. In the rst stage, both hourly load and generating units are divided into divisions. This technique allows searching the hourly schedule of units in only one division and thus speeds the solution. In the second stage, a fuzzy optimization based algorithm is proposed to nd an optimal solution for the UC problem by using fuzzy operations and if-then rules. In the third stage, a renement of the obtained solution is achieved by adjusting unit minimum up/down time constraint. 4.1. Stage 1: dividing the load and generating units In this stage, both the hourly load and generating units are divided into base, medium, and peak divisions. This technique is executed as follows: 1. Dividing the hourly load into: Base load (Base): equal to the minimum value of the given hourly load. Peak load: any load which is larger than 90% of the maximum hourly load is considered as peak load. Medium load: is the load between base and peak values. 2. All generating units are arranged in a priority list on the basis of their full load average costs. The lowest productions cost units are put at the top of the list, whereas the highest ones are on the bottom. 3. From the priority list a number of generating units are chosen to supply the required load plus the reserve values. The units are divided to:

3.2.2.2. Spinning reserve membership function. The spinning reserve constraint can be described as fuzzy inequality relation as follows:
N

R2 (t ) Ut (i) Rct (i)

i=1

(12)

There are two thresholds for the reserve variable: Nominal reserve: this value veries the greatest degree of satisfaction, i.e. degree one. Minimum acceptable reserve (least value): this value veries a completely unacceptable degree of satisfaction, i.e. degree zero. ) is The membership function of the fuzzy inequality ( described by: 1 R ( ) = 1 0 (R(t ) ) R(t ) if R(t ) if R(t ) else where (13) R(t ) < < R(t )

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Base units: these units usually have the highest starting costs, longest minimum up/down times and lowest production costs. These units are always committed during the studied period. Peak units: these units have the highest production costs and the shortest minimum up/down times. A list of all possible states for these units is made (a state means: a unit combination or unit schedule). Medium units: these units have characteristics in between the last two types. A list of all possible states for these units is made. The rst group of units has to supply the base load, while the second and third groups have to supply the medium and peak loads respectively. 4.2. Stage 2: a proposed fuzzy algorithm (FA) This algorithm classies the load at each hour, i.e. base, medium or peak load, then calls the states of the corresponding units, candidates the feasible states, and searches among them about the best state which has the maximum overall membership degree to be the solution at the present hour. During searching, the operating cost for each state is computed by executing an economic dispatch (ED), thus the fuzzy membership function degrees for the production cost, load demand balance, and spinning reserve constraints are calculated. The fuzzy overall membership function degree for each state is the minimum degree among the last three degrees. The unit output and ramping rate crisp constraints are handled during the ED. In the following subsections the used economic dispatch, the crisp constraints handling, and the fuzzy solution procedure are addressed. 4.2.1. Economic dispatch The ED is carried out as a crisp process to compute the output of units and thus the crisp operating cost, the process is executed in this paper before and after UC. Before UC, the ED is achieved to compute the operating cost for each candidate state at each time step; this cost is taken later as fuzzy quantity during solving the UC. For base loads, the ED is only executed over base units. For medium loads, the process is executed over base units and the committed medium units in each of medium states. While, for peak loads, it is achieved over base, medium, and the committed peak units in each of peak states. The ED is executed by committing the units at their minimum outputs, if the generation is lesser than the load, then the most efcient unit (according to the priority list) has to increase its generation until either its maximum output or its ramp up rate is reached, then the next unit in the priority list is considered. The process continues until the load demand is supplied. Once the outputs of units are computed, the operating cost of the state can be calculated by using the unit cost functions. After achieving UC, an ED is resorted again to compute the exact economic cost. In case using quadratic fuel functions, the ED is achieved by Lambda () criteria technique.

4.2.2. Crisp unit constraints handling As mentioned before, the unit output limits and ramping rate constraints are handled during executing the ED, using the if-then relations as follows: if Pmax (i) Pt 1 (i) RUR(i) then Pmax (i, t ) = Pmax (i)

otherwise, Pmax (i, t ) = Pt 1 (i) + RUR(i). Similarly, if Pt 1 (i) Pmin (i) RDR(i) then Pmin (i, t ) = Pmin (i)

otherwise, Pmin (i, t ) = Pt 1 (i) RDR(i). Thus, while realizing the ED, the unit output limits are taken as: Pmin (i, t ) Pt (i) Pmax (i, t )

4.2.3. The fuzzy solution procedure The procedure consists of the following steps: Step 1: h = 1. All base units must be run, i.e. status ON. Step 2: Check if load (h) Base then, the state is only the base units are ON. Calculate the economic dispatch (ED) and go to step 6. Else if load (h) > Med go to step 7.
Nb

Else, check if
i=1

Pmax (i) [load(h) + reserve], then the

state is only the base units are ON, Calculate the economic dispatch and go to step 6. Else: call the states for medium units and go to step 3. Step 3: The base units are ON, the medium units are scheduled and the peak units are OFF. For each state, only the candidated state (k) is the state that veries the following condition:
Nb Nm

Pmax (i) +
i=1 j =1

Pmax (j ) Uh (j ) 0.95 load(h)

The value (0.95) is assumed on basis of the deviation in forecasting load (5%) to make a fuzzy relation. Step 4: For each candidate (k) compute the following: load demand PG, thus calculate d (k) using Eq. (11); reserve amount, Res(k), then calculate R (k) using Eq. (2); production cost by an ED, then calculate c (k) using Eq. (15) and overall membership degree o (k), using Eq. (5): o (k) = min(R (k), d (k), . . . , c (k)) Step 5: Choose the best state, which has the maximum overall membership degree st (k) to be the solution at hour (h) by using Eq. (6): st (h) = max(o (1), o (2), . . . , o (km ))

M.M. El-Saadawi et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 72 (2004) 245252 Table 1 38-units system data Unit no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Pmax (MW) 550 550 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 500 365 365 325 315 315 315 272 272 260 190 150 125 110 75 70 70 70 70 60 60 60 60 60 38 38 Pmin (MW) 220 220 200 200 200 200 200 200 200 114 114 114 110 90 82 120 65 65 65 120 120 110 80 10 60 55 35 20 20 20 20 20 25 18 8 25 20 20 a ($) 64782 64782 64670 64670 64670 64670 64670 64670 172832 172832 176003 173028 91340 63440 65468 72282 190928 285372 271376 39197 45576 28770 36902 105510 22233 30953 17044 81079 124767 121915 120780 104441 83224 111281 64142 103519 13547 13518 b ($/MW) 0796.9 796.9 795.5 795.5 795.5 795.5 795.5 795.5 915.7 915.7 884.2 884.2 1250.1 1298.6 1298.6 1290.8 238.1 1149.5 1269.1 696.1 660.2 803.2 818.2 33.5 805.4 707.1 833.6 2188.7 1024.4 837.1 1305.2 716.6 1633.9 969.5 2625.8 1633.9 694.7 655.9 c ($/MW2 ) 0.3133 0.3133 0.3127 0.3127 0.3127 0.3127 0.3127 0.3127 0.7075 0.7075 0.7515 0.7083 0.4211 0.5145 0.5691 0.5691 2.5881 3.8734 3.6842 0.4921 0.5728 0.3572 0.9415 52.123 1.1421 2.0275 3.0744 16.765 26.355 30.575 25.098 33.722 23.915 32.562 18.362 23.915 8.482 9.693 Start up cost ($) 805000 805000 805000 805000 805000 805000 805000 805000 402500 402500 402500 402500 575000 575000 575000 575000 23000 023000 023000 575000 575000 460000 092000 023000 115000 287500 253000 005750 005750 005750 005750 007670 007670 007670 007670 007670 069000 069000 MUT (h) 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 7 7 7 7 9 12 12 10 1 1 1 9 9 11 14 1 8 14 14 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11 11 MDT (h) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 1 1 1 8 8 8 7 1 8 7 7 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 8 RUR (MW/h) 92 92 84 84 84 84 84 84 128 128 128 128 110 92 92 82 320 320 320 55 55 53 48 460 42 28 20 70 70 70 75 70 70 70 70 75 10 10

249

RDR (MW/h) 138 138 120 120 120 120 120 120 256 256 256 256 170 125 125 125 70 70 70 91 91 132 98 20 60 56 38 30 30 30 30 30 30 20 20 30 20 20

Step 6: Put h = h + 1 if (h > 24) go to step 8. Else, go to step 2. Step 7: The base and medium units are ON, Nb Nm Check if i=1 Pmax (i) + j =1 Pmax (j ) load(h) + reserve then, the state is only the base and medium units are ON, thus go back to step 3. Else, call all states for peak units, for each state candidate only the state k, which veries the condition:
Np Nb Nm

Print the chosen state at each hour (h) to be the sub-optimal schedule. 4.3. Stage 3: renement of the schedule According to the basis on which the units are selected, the minimum up/down time constraints are always performed for base and peak units. In more details, the base units are always committed during all study periods, while the minimum up/down times for peak units are often equal to or less than the time step (1 h). They may be violated for some medium units. To insure complete verication for these constraints, a ltering process is handled. This process is executed taking into consideration the up/down times of the units schedule for each load value and the units schedule for the next load by checking the up/down times of units through the obtained schedule. If the constraint is violated, next states are tested, until the constraint is performed. After this stage, a lambda-criteria ED is executed over the resultant UC solution to compute the nal total economic

Pmax (j ) Uh (j ) +
j =1 i=1

Pmax (i) +
i=1

Pmax (i)

0.95 load(h) Assume the number of candidates (km ), and go to step 4. Step 8:

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cost. The following remarks can be observed after applying this stage: The checked states (to perform the up/down constraint) are chosen from the candidate states, i.e. they are feasible states to other constrains. The changes in the status of units are usually in a narrow scale due to the basis on which the units are divided (0.53%) of unit status. Dealing with the overall membership degree, o , leads to taking simultaneously the fuzzy membership into account.

5. Case study A computer program was written using the FORTRAN language so that the proposed approach can be applied to large-scale thermal power system. The approach is applied to the 38 thermal unit system mentioned in [5] to compare the results with that obtained by other methods. The system data are shown in Table 1, while the load data are given in Table 2. The application is executed under the same conditions taken by Ref. [5], i.e. the start up costs are constants, shut down costs are neglected, and with taking 11% of hourly load as spinning reserve requirements into account (the thresholds of the reserve constraint are 11 and 7%). Also, the ramp up/down constraints for each of the units are taken into consideration. The thresholds of load are 4800 MW for Base, and 7450 MW for Med. The units 17 through 19, 24 and 28 through 36 are peak units; the units 1 through 8, 20 through

Table 2 Load data of the studied system Time (h) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Load (MW) 5700 5400 5150 4850 4950 4800 4850 5400 6700 7850 8000 8100 6900 8150 8250 8000 7800 7100 6800 7300 7100 6800 6550 6450

23, and 25 through 27 are base units, while the units 9 through 16, 37, and 38 are medium units. After executing the solution scenario as discussed before, the nal results were obtained as shown in Table 3, with total crisp cost of M$ 213.9 through about 5 s. This case was studied by the four methods DP, LR, SA, and CLP [5]. The total crisp costs and the execution times obtained by the ve methods are compared as shown in Table 4. The comparison shows that the total cost obtained by the proposed method has the second degree in respect of the lowest cost (behind the CLP method), but its execution time is the shortest one among the ve methods. The comparison conrms the closeness of the overall results and proves that it is an effective tool for solving the UC problem. Also, the computing time of the proposed method is short due to less computational process. The crisp methods limit the spinning reserve to its nominal value, while the FA deals with this constraint as a fuzzy variable. Thus more expensive units may be selected in the solutions obtained by crisp methods. Therefore, the costs may increase in case of solutions obtained by crisp methods. In fact, the comparison is made in this paper to prove the validity of the proposed method (Ref. [13] compared between a fuzzy logic approach and a crisp dynamic programming approach for the same task). The comparison shows also that the proposed method is a fast tool. The use of the method may save in the cost, where it is not necessary to deal with the spinning reserve, as a crisp variable. On other hand, when applying the proposed method to the same system with ignoring the ramp rate constraints, the cost of the obtained solution was M$ 207.9, compared to M$ 213.9, when considering the ramp rate as illustrated in Table 4. The results show that ramp rate constraints restrict the outputs of some units to certain capacities during rising or lowering the load, and thus some expensive units have to be added. This demonstrates that the ramp rate constraints cannot be neglected.

6. Conclusions A new heuristic fuzzy method has been proposed for solving the thermal UC problem. The load demand, spinning reserve, and operating cost are represented by fuzzy membership functions. The proposed method handles the unit generation limits, ramp rate limits, and minimum up/down time limits as crisp constraints. The method depends on using the fuzzy operations and the if-then rules for searching about the best unit schedule. A computer program was written and applied to a large scale power system consists of 38-units. A Comparison between the results obtained with considering and neglecting the ramp rates shows that: neglecting

M.M. El-Saadawi et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 72 (2004) 245252 Table 3 Final results of the studied system Hour l 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Load (MW) 5700 5400 5150 4850 4950 4800 4850 5400 6700 7850 8000 8100 6900 8150 8250 8000 7800 7100 6800 7300 7100 6800 6550 6450 Chosen state R l 0.86 0.488 0.94 0.55 0.67 0.22 0.35 1 0.226 1 0.877 1 0.46 0.74 1 0.98 1 1 0.87 0.02 1 0.63 0.55 Production cost ($) d 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 c 0.927 0.948 0.787 0.72 0.93 0.73 0.68 0.66 1 0.912 1 0.833 0.897 0.63 0.94 0.67 0.83 0.84 0.77 0.73 0.90 0.77 0.70 0.84 o 0.927 0.86 0.488 0.72 0.55 0.67 0.22 0.35 1 0.226 1 0.833 0.897 0.46 0.74 0.67 0.83 0.84 0.77 0.73 0.02 0.77 0.63 0.55 16234780 6162851 5734151 5390191 6487791 5371404 5422277 9085918 9281980 10684470 10595860 10849670 8367491 12355280 11242420 10651340 10345590 8770456 8366886 9590061 8770457 8366886 7957839 7840516

251

Min total cost ($) 16234780 22397630 28131780 33521970 40009760 45381160 50803440 59889360 69171340 79855820 90451670 101301300 109668800 122024100 133266500 143917900 154263500 163033900 171400800 180990900 189761300 198128200 206086000 213926600

the ramp rate constraints affects the accuracy of the applied methodology. The ramp rate constraints restrict the outputs of some units to certain capacities during rising or lowering the load, and thus some expensive units have to be added. Taking the ramp rate constraints into account, the crisp cost was M$ 213.9 compared with M$ 215.2, 214.5, 215.6, and 213.8 for the DP, LR, SA and CLP methods respectively. Also, the execution time taken by the proposed method was only 5 s, while it was 199, 29, 2589 and 17 s for the other four methods respectively. The achieved results prove the validity and effectiveness of the suggested method to solve large-scale UC problems. The advantages of this method are: Avoiding the complex calculations used in crisp optimization based methods. Minimizing the search space to nd the solution and thus its computational time is short. Its principles can be expanded to consider complicated cases (larger systemsmore constraints). Avoiding the non-feasible solutions or uneconomic schedules that may be produced by using the crisp methods.

All constraints are involved, on conict with other fuzzy methods. Moreover, its a new tool that can be used to solve the UC problem.

List of symbols

Base C C0 d Med MUT MDT N Nb Nm Np OCi

a oating variable represents the base load level cost function of the UC problem ideal cost ($) maximum range of variation from the nominal demand a oating variable represents the medium load level minimum up time for unit i (h) minimum down time for unit i (h) total no of generating units no. of base units no. of medium units no. of peak units fuel cost of unit i

Table 4 Comparison between the proposed method and other methods Algorithm Cost (M$) considering ramp rate Cost (M$) neglecting ramp rate Execution time (s) DP 215.2 201.5 199 LR 214.5 209.0 29 SA 215.6 207.8 2589 CLP 213.8 208.1 17 Proposed FA 213.9 207.9 5

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M.M. El-Saadawi et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 72 (2004) 245252 [3] R.C. Asir, M.R. Mohan, K. Manivannan, Rened simulated annealing method for solving unit commitment problem, Proc. Int. Joint Conf. Neural Netw. 1 (2002). [4] K.A. Juste, E. Tanaka, J. Haegawa, An evolutionary programming solution to the unit commitment problem, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 14 (4) (1999). [5] K.Y. Huang, H.T. Yang, C.L. Yang, A new thermal unit commitment approach using constraint logic programming, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 13 (3) (1998). [6] C.J. Aldridge, et al., Knowledge-based genetic algorithm for unit commitment, IEE Proc. Gen. Trans. Distr. 148 (2) (2001). [7] T. Senjyu, et al., A unit commitment problem by using genetic algorithm based on characteristic classication, Proc. IEEE Power Eng. Soc. Trans. Distr. Conf. 1 (2002). [8] W. Fan, X. Guan, G. Zhai, Unit commitment with ramping constraints, Electr. Power Syst. Res. 62 (3) (2002). [9] P.C. Chuan, W.L. Chih, C.L. Chun, Unit commitment by Lagrangiane relaxation and genetic algorithms, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 15 (2) (2000). [10] P. Attaviriyanupap, et al., A new prot-based unit commitment considering power and reserve generating, Proc. IEEE Power Eng. Soc. Trans. Distr. Conf.rence 2 (2002). [11] H. Yan, P.B. Luh, A fuzzy optimization-based method for integrated power system scheduling and inter utility power transaction with uncertainties, IEEE Trans. PWRS 12 (2) (1997). [12] N.P. Padhy, Unit commitment using hybrid models: a comparative study for dynamic programming, expert system, fuzzy system and genetic algorithms, Int. J. Electr. Power Energy Syst. 23 (8) (2001). [13] S. Saneifard, N.R. Prasad, H.A. Smolleck, A fuzzy logic approach to unit commitment, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 12 (2) (1997). [14] N.P. Padhy, S.R. Parajpthi, V. Ramachanran, Hybrid fuzzy neural network expert system for a short term unit commitment problem, Microelectron. Reliab. 37 (5) (1997). [15] M.M. El-Saadawi, M.A. Tantawi, E. Tawk, A Fast Heuristic Approach to Unit Commitment, in: Al-Azhar Engineering 7th International Conference, AEIC 2003, Cairo, 2003 April.

Pd (t) nominal demand (predicted load) at hour t (MW) P(i, t) generation output of unit i at time t (MW) Pmax (i) maximum generation capacity of unit i (MW) Pmax (i, t) maximum available capacity of unit i at hour t (MW) Pmin (i, t) minimum available capacity of unit i at hour t (MW) Rc(i, t) reserve contribution of unit i at time t RDR(i) ramp down rate limit for unit i (MW/h) Res(k) reserve value for state k R(t) the nominal reserve at time t (MW) RUR(i) ramp up rate limit for unit i (MW/h) SCi start up cost of unit i ($) U(i, t) status value of unit i at time t (for on status, Ut (i) = 1 and for off status, Ut (i) = 0) Greek letters c (k) cost membership degree for state k d (k) load demand membership degree for state k o (i) overall membership degree for state k R (x) membership degree for the reverse value x Res (k) reserve membership degree for state k

References
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