Paper accepted for presentation at 2003 IEEE Bologna Power Tech Conference, June 23th-26th, Bologna, Italy

A Solution to The Unit Commitment Problem

Via Molecular Mechanics
Claudio Roa-Sepúlveda Boris Pavez-Lazo Mauricio Canales Mario Lillo-Saavedra

Dh : Demand of hour h
Abstract—This paper proposes a 4-state generating unit n : 1,2,..., NU
definition for the Unit Commitment (UC) formulation plus the NU : Number of units
standard definitions. This consideration produces a h : 1,2,.., H(period under study)
dimensionality problem that is tackled through the imitation of
the geometrical optimisation problem of molecular structures to II. INTRODUCTION
reach its minimum energy state. Based on classical mechanics
laws, the Geometric Optimisation (GO) process is imitated, where In the appropriate planning and operation of a modern EPS
molecular structures can be optimised from an energy viewpoint. is absolutely important to satisfy the demand according to the
To achieve this, the Electric Power System (EPS) is modelled as a new market scenarios while maintaining system security. No
Molecular System (MS) composed of several virtual molecules matter if the EPS has being privatised or not, it is featured by a
where each one of them represents a generating unit. Thus,
getting the minimum potential energy (via the van der Waals great diversity of generators, turbines and boilers and each
energy function) of the Molecular System is equivalent to obtain new unit added to a system has got a better performance than
the minimum production cost of electric energy. To solve the the previous ones. These facts turn the EPS operation into a
problem, the Simulated Annealing (SA) technique is used as the difficult problem to solve due to its high complexity and non-
optimisation technique. The EPS-MS model and method proposed linearity thus requiring much more advanced techniques to get
here are validated in this work when calculating a 24-hour UC
a better solution. If the old paradigm in power systems was:
and its results are compared to an optimal solution analytically
obtained and a solution using the conventional on/off states. the full utilisation of electric energy to a minimum cost;
nowadays, this paradigm has changed to: a full utilisation of
Keywords: Unit Commitment, Geometric Optimisation, electric energy to a minimum cost for the user, and a maximum
Molecular Mechanics, Simulated Annealing profit for investors.
The UC problem has been defined using models ranging
I. NOMENCLATURE from the generalized ones [1-5, 6(good review)] to those
Nomenclature used in the problem statement: considering some of the market scenarios [7-9]. Although all
( )
C nh Pnh : Cost of unit n in hour h.
the proposed models try to be general, the number of possible
states of each unit remains low (mainly ON or OFF),
h
CSU n : Unit n start-up cost. especially for thermal power plants (the handling of
CSDn : Unit n shutdown cost. hydropower unit is easier for this case). Nonetheless, electric
TSUin : Overall running time of unit n. markets done through POOL criteria need a more complete
TSDin : Overall shutdown time of unit n. unit definition, for thermal power plants, in order to model
SUn : Minimum up time of unit n. them closer to actual operational states.
SDn : Minimum down time of unit n. When the power system model has been set, its solution has
x0n, x1n, x2n : Generation cost function coefficients mainly been approached through classical techniques based on
an, bn : Banking start cost function coefficients methods such as Lagrangean Relaxation (LR), Linear
b1n, b2n, b3n : Start cost function coefficients Programming and Dynamic Programming [10]. The most
F : Overall costs common used classical technique has been the Lagrangean
tn : time unit n has been off Relaxation approach [11-16]. Since the electric market needs
Rh : Spinning reserve in hour h. to have auditable solutions, the LR technique provides a sound
mathematical background to support this need. However,
C.A.Roa-Sepulveda gratefully acknowledges the financial support given convergence problems could arise using this approach, since
by the Chilean Research Council through the project FONDECYT 1000398. the unit state definition produces an integer-variable problem
B.J.Pavez-Lazo gratefully acknowledges the financial support given by the that is hard to handle via LR. Stochastic techniques such as
Graduate School of University of Concepcion.
C.A. Roa-Sepulveda and M. Lillo-Saavedra are with Departamento de Montecarlo [17] have been also used to solve the UC problem,
Ingeniería Eléctrica, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción – CHILE (e- but the unit state definition induces a dimensionality problem.
mail: croa@die.udec.cl) Even with the big advances to modify the above techniques to
B. Pavez-Lazo is with Departamento de Ingenieria Electrica, Universidad
de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile (e-mail: bpavez@ufro.cl) improve convergence, there is still the problem of the limited
M Canales is with Biotechnology Centre, University Federico Santa number of unit state definitions, which could meet the needs of
Maria, Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile

0-7803-7967-5/03/$17.00 ©2003 IEEE

this new market scenario. III. UC GENERAL FORMULATION
Furthermore, the inclusion of restrictions such as power
flow, up/down minimum times and start-up/shut-down costs A. Objective Function
has prompted the need of new solution methods that accept
The mathematical model used as an objective function to
more refined UC models. It is particularly accepted that UC is
obtain the Unit Commitment of Thermal Units is:
a combinatorial feature problem where the universe size
{C }
H NU
depends basically on the time slot to which the study is done,
F ( P, t ) = h
n ( Pnh ) + CSUnh + CSDn (1)
on the definable state number for the different generating units
h =1 n =1
and on the number of generating units. The size of the solution This objective function is composed of the following costs:
set is a restriction to be considered for obtaining good results
due to the high computing cost. Therefore, the search of new B. Production cost
optimisation techniques becomes important and it has been This term, (2), represents the “n” unit costs in hour “h” as a
centred in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based function of the generated power according to the state in which
methods. the unit is in such a period. This functional describes the
Most of the AI work reported in the literature is related to modelling of thermal units by having four operational states.
Genetic Algorithm (GA), Hopfield Neural Networks (HNN) The strong competition between Independent Power Producers
and Taboo Search (TS) techniques. The most reported area is (IPP) to be committed in Chilean Northern Interconnected
GA [18-28] that provides good results using an ON/OFF unit System (SING) electric market has prompted the need for a
state model (GA binary coding) and simplified start/down more elaborated model of the Thermal UC. Therefore, two
time. Work needs still to be done to overcome the problem of states have been included: technical minimum [38] and
Banking. This is different from the standard on/off model
considering a large number of states (GA decimal coding) and
normally used, to the knowledge of the authors, in the
a proper definition of start/down times. HNN [29-31] provides
literature with the exception of [38] which describes the
a solution that relies on a Lyapunov type of energy function for
technical minimum state.
assuring convergence. However, the use of discrete variable For the sake of clarity, banking means that the unit is not
(unit state) provokes HNN convergence instability. Although synchronised but it has all its thermal properties ready to start
TS [32-33] provides a good solution for not being trapped into producing power. The banking cost is associated to the cost of
local minima, the handling of the taboo list is cumbersome in keeping the thermal unit boiler at a temperature such that this
systems with a large solution universe. can be committed at any moment.
In view of the above characteristics and considering the 0 off
current requirements of electric markets, this work proposes a
4-state generating unit definition for the UC formulation. This x0n banking
consideration produces a dimensionality problem that is Cnh (Pnh ) = (2)
x2n Pnh,min + x1n Pnh,min + x0n
2
minimum
tackled through the imitation of the geometrical optimisation
x2n Pnh,max + x1n Pnh,max + x0n maximum
2
problem of molecular structures to reach its minimum energy
state [34-37]. This makes it necessary “to map” the variables
that participate in the UC formulation onto the molecular C. Start-up cost
energy function, thus achieving a formal approximation This cost is dependent of both the time and the unit state when
between a molecular system and a power system. This method is needed.
represents an improvement to what is proposed in [37] by b1n ⋅ t ⋅ F + b2n banking
formalising the mapping of the objective function to a CSUnh = −b3n ⋅t
(3)
potential energy function: a model based on van der Waals b1n (1 − e ) ⋅ F + b2n cold
energy function is proposed.
The Simulated Annealing (SA) technique is used as the D. Shut-down cost
optimisation algorithm. This is a technique that has shown The CSD values are generally considered constant.
advantages in many works with respect to the classical E. Demand and spinning reserve
optimisation techniques. Ref. [37] shows an application and
The power supplied by all on-units must at least fulfil the
the advantages of SA to solve the GO problem.
demand plus the spinning reserve.
Finally, in order to validate the model and the proposed NU
optimisation algorithm, a 24-hour unit commitment for a 5-unit Pnh ≥ D h + R h h = 1,...., H (4)
real power system is obtained and compared to both the results n =1
provided by an analytical solution and those from the classical
On/Off unit model. F. Minimum up and down times
The total number of hours for which unit “n” has been running
must be bigger or equal to the minimum unit uptime.
TSU in ≥ SU n n = 1,.........., N U (5)
i
Similarly, the total number of hours for which unit n has been good approximation between a molecular and a power system
down must be bigger or equal to the minimum unit downtime. is obtained. This proposal is different from what is proposed in
TSDin ≥ SDn n = 1,.........., N U (6)
[37].
i
V. VAN DER WAALS POTENTIAL ENERGY [35]
G. Generator technical limits
The van der Waals potential energy is defined as the potential
Pnh, mín ≤ Pnh ≤ Pnh, máx (7) energy addition for all pairs of nonbonded atoms. It can be
written as follows:
IV. PROPOSED MODEL rpq *12 ε pq rpq *6 ε pq
EVDW = 12
−2 6 (8)
The main goal of this work is to imitate the GO process R pq R pq
pq
optimising the molecular system potential energy [35] and
thus, when finding the solution, this will be equivalent to solve with
the UC problem [37]. To fulfil this goal, an electrical system rpq * = rp * + rq * ε pq = ε p ⋅ ε q (9)
must be modelled as a molecular system composed of several
nonbonded virtual molecules where each molecule represents a where
generating unit. rp*, rq* : Minimum separating distance for an atom p and
According to our UC formulation, the generating unit is an atom q.
defined by 4 operational states as established by (2). Therefore εp,εq : van der Waals minimum value for an atom p and
to represent a generating unit, an artificial molecule having a an atom q.
central nucleus and four bonded atoms is proposed. Each Rpq : Non-bounded distance between atom p and atom q.
bonded atom represents one unit operational state as shown in p : 1, 2, ... NA
Figure 1. Considering this generator molecular model, it can q : p+1, ...NA
be assumed that during the unit commitment search process, NA : number of atoms.
different operation state combinations will be obtained by the
interaction among the atoms of each molecule. Thus, from an The analytical shape of the potential functions depends on the
energy viewpoint of the molecular system (Figure 1), it is GO method being used (AMBER, MM+, OPLS AND BIO+
necessary to appropriately define what type of energy function [35]). The proposal of this paper is based on AMBER force
can be used to solve the UC. field. For van der Waals potential energy, rp* and εp are
defined as constant parameters, while Rpq values are the sought
Banking Off variables during the optimisation process.
Maximum
Off
From the analysis of equation (8), the minimum value of EVDW
can be calculated as:
Unit 1 EVDW min = − ε pq (10)
Unit n
and it is obtained when fulfilling:
Minimum R pq = r pq * (11)
Maximum
Banking Considering equations (10) and (11), equation (8) can be
Minimum
written as:
Figure 1. Generation molecular system model
12 6
r* r*
The first approach that can be proposed when observing the E *
VDW = ε 12 − 2 6 (12)
system of Figure 1 is that the molecules interact among them
R R
through nonbonded energies such as van der Waals, with
Electrostatic and Hydrogen binding. The Hydrogen binding ε= ε pq r* = r pq
*
R= R pq
energy (EHB) corresponds to the energy present between a (13)
hydrogen atom and another receiver atom not bonded to it and,
in spite of its identical formulation to van der Waals [34], it is
Another important characteristic of van der Waals potential
limited to the hydrogen atom. However, Electrostatic energy
energy is the definition of pairs of nonbonded atoms, e.i. pairs
(EE) is related to the interaction among nonbonded electrical
of atoms among which there is no covalent binding and whose
charges and the energy minimum state is obtained when atoms
interaction is given by van der Waals parameters. In GO
are at a great distance among them. Finally, van der Waals
algorithms used in Computational Chemistry, a list of
energy is the most adequate for our model, since it relates
nonbonded pairs of atoms is defined for which van der Waals
interaction energies of any atom and its minimum value
potential energy is calculated. The method to generate the
implies a balanced molecular structure.
nonbonded atom list used for the proposed model can be found
Therefore, to use van der Waals potential energy it is
in Appendix I.
necessary to map the UC formulation variables onto those
intervening in the molecular energy function. In this way, a
 VI. UNIT COMMITMENT VIA VAN DER WAALS POTENTIAL committed generation close to the system demand and another
ENERGY (UCVDW) one with a total committed generation bigger than the system
To use the GO technique and van der Waals potential energy demand but with a lower cost than the previous commitment.
as a new UC solution method, it is necessary to create an In this case, the minimum potential energy value is achieved
analogy between molecular and electrical variables. for the unit commitment with the lowest production cost.
-5
x 10
Considering the artificial molecule model and the van der
6 PD=705
Waals potential energy definition, the following statements are
PD=880
4
proposed:
1) Equation (11) shows that the equality between standard and 2
solution distances should be fulfilled. This equality can be 0
associated to UC power balance restriction. Therefore,
-2
molecular distances and electrical power variables can be

E VDW
associated. -4

In van der Waals potential formulation, the value of rp* -6

corresponds to a specific value depending on the atom -8
type. If we consider the model of Figure 1, each atom of
-10
the virtual molecule is a unit operational state, so an
equivalence between rp* and the generation power is -12
proposed. We define that the generation power will -14
correspond to the sum of standard distances, as shown in 650 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000 1050 1100
600
equation (14). Total Active Generation

r* ≡ Pn = PG (14) Figure 2: UCVDW evolution for different system demands

-4
x 10

2) Each state considered in the model has got an associated -1.12 Minimum Cost (P
G=712)

production cost. Hence, the parameter εpq can be associated

Minimum Generation (P
G
=706)
-1.14
to production cost as:
1
ε≡ (15)
-1.16

F +1
EVDW

-1.18
The inverse relation between Van der Waals minimum
value and the production cost is valid if equation (10) is -1.20
considered. This equation shows that the minimum energy
value is the negative of ε, so the smaller the production -1.22

cost, the more negative the value of ε.

-1.24

3) In GO, the solution variable Rpq is found in order to fulfil

680 690 700 710 720 730 740 750
equation (11). Then, considering what is proposed in Point Total Active Generation
1) this variable can be associated to the electric demand as
in equation (16). Figure 3: UCVDW evolution for minimum cost and committed
R= R pq ≡ PD (16)
generation
Considering the molecular and electrical mapping proposals,
the generating molecule model with van der Waals parameters
Therefore, considering what has been proposed through defined for each atom is shown in Figure 4.
equations (14) to (16), equation (12) can be written as a Assumptions done for this model are the following:
function of the variables that intervene in UC as follows: • The proposed molecule structure corresponds to its
*12 *6 minimum energy. The interactions among atoms of this
1 PG P
UCVDW = −2 G 6 (17) molecule are not considered.
F + 1 PD 12
PD • The search of the potential minimum energy (UCVDW) will
Figures 2 and 3 show sensitivity analyses of equation (17) with depend on nonbonded atom interaction among distinct
respect to system demand and committed generation in a two- molecules and considering one atom per molecule. This is
machine system. It can be observed from Figure 2 that the achieved with the generation of the nonbonded atom list
equality between the system demand and the total committed (Appendix 1).
generation is achieved in the potential energy valley, where the • The search of the minimum potential energy molecular
minimum lies. structure, a product of molecule interaction, supposes a
Figure 3 shows the curves of equation (17) for a system molecule rotation and translation movement in space.
demand (PD) of 705 MW and two different commitments.
These curves consider one unit commitment that has the total
 r* ≡ PBanking r* ≡ POff = 0 The most important SA parameters required to solve any
optimisation problem are the following:
ε ≡ CBanking = 1/(CBanking+1) ε ≡ COff = 1/(COff+1) • The number of iterations at a constant temperature (Mo).
A low number of Mo will result in being trapped in local
minimum.
Banking Off • Cooling strategy (ρo). If the annealing temperature is
decreased too fast, the algorithm will be trapped in local
minimum regardless of the proper T and Mo tuning.
Unit The above two annealing parameters should be set through
sensitivity analyses. These analyses need to be done in every
optimisation problem.
Minimum Maximum
VIII. APPLICATIONS
In order to validate the model and the proposed method, an
r* ≡ PMin r* ≡ PMax
application to the Chilean Northern Interconnected System
ε ≡ C = 1/(C +1) (SING), a 5 generating-unit system (Appendix 3), is presented.
ε ≡ CMin = 1/(CMin+1) Max Max
Although this system seems to be small (just 7 units fulfil the
Figure 4: Generator molecular model
demand), its importance for the Chilean economy is high (10%
GBP and 40% exports) and it feeds the copper industry that
Finally, considering the previous assumptions, the UC problem
produces just about 30% of the worldwide mine copper. This
can be formulated as follows:
fact makes the electric market in this area very competitive,
min UCVDW (18) thus resulting in new questions such the one address in this
subject equations (4) to (7) paper: the unit commitment with more states than the classical
The generation cost and start-up equations are now defined as on/off unit model.
a function of atom variables as: The results obtained via the proposed method are compared to
0 Off n the optimal solution manually found (analytic solution) for a
24-hour demand curve (out of 1023 UC combinations per
x 0n Bankingn
hour) and the classical On/Off unit model. The analytical
C nh ( Atomnh ) =
x 2n P h2
n , min + x1n P h
n , min + x 0n Minimumn (19) solution is found when searching for the best UC combination
that gives the smallest cost per hour (Chilean Grid Code).
+ x1n P + x 0 n Maximumn
2
h h
x 2n P n , max n , max The energy function to minimise is the one defined by
equation (17). The restrictions considered in this application
correspond to the restrictions of power flows and unit
b1n ⋅ t ⋅ F + b2 n On n & Bankingn operation given by equations (4) to (7) respectively. A step-to-
CSU ( Atomnh −1 ) = −b3n ⋅t
b1n (1 − e ) ⋅ F + b2 n On n & Off n (20) step description of UC algorithm is found in Appendix 2.
The cooling sequence is chosen through sensitivity analyses of
(17). Given the SA probabilistic characteristic, in the random
solution generation as well as their acceptance (Boltzmann),
VII. THE SIMULATED ANNEALING TECHNIQUE [39]
this sensitivity analysis runs the algorithm 20 times for each
The Simulated Annealing (SA) technique was proposed by Mo and ρo value [40]. It can be observed from Figures 5 and 6
Kirkpatrick, Gelatt and Vecchi in 1983 [39] as a new that a bigger number of iterations at constant temperature and
technique to obtain near-to-optimum solutions to optimisation a near-to-1 temperature decrement factor are the best cooling
problems. SA has been tested in several optimisation problems sequence (slow sequence) to find the smallest operation cost,
showing great ability for not being trapped in local minima. at the expense of having high CPU times.
The SA strategy starts with a “high” temperature giving a high 240000 70
probability to accept non-improving movements. The Cost
60
Average Total Cost ($)

temperature and probability levels diminish as long as the 235000 Time

algorithm advances to the optimal solution. In this way, a 50
Time (s)

230000
diversification procedure in the search algorithm is performed 40
with care in the system energy. 225000 30
The main key to obtain good solutions in the usage of SA is 20
the cooling criterion. Questions such as what should the initial 220000
10
temperature be? And what should the cooling procedure be?
are of paramount importance for the good use of SA. There are 215000 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
several works in literature to answer those questions, but in
Mo
general SA gives acceptable solutions when the initial
temperature is highly associated to a slow cooling procedure Figure 5: Average performance from 20 runs (ρo=0.9)
[39,40].
 Chilean grid code (local hourly minimum). This finding has
224000 350
223500 Cost
been informed to the Chilean Energy Commission for their
300
analyses for the revised Grid Code.
Average Total Cost ($)

223000 Time
222500 250 Figure 8 also shows the benefit of having more unit states and
222000

Time (s)
221500 200 their influence in the total UC operational cost.
221000 150
220500 1150
220000 100
1100 UCvdw
219500 Load
50
219000 On/Off
1050
218500 0
0,75 0,77 0,79 0,82 0,84 0,86 0,88 0,91 0,93 0,95
1000
ρo
950

MW
Figure 6: Average performance from 20 runs (Mo=10)
900

Therefore and for this test system, the number of iterations at 850
constant temperature (Mo) is set to 10 and a cooling factor
800
(ρo) to 0.90.
750

700
IX. RESULTS 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Hour
Table 1 shows a 24-hour UC result in which the best and worst
total costs are compared to both the cost obtained through the Figure 7: UC and Demand per hour ($ 219902.1)
analytical solution and the On/Off unit model: considering 20
runs of the proposed method for the chosen cooling sequence
300
in the sensitivity analysis. Although CPU time is not the main
concern at this stage of the research, the algorithm was coded 250
in MATLAB 5.2 in a Pentium III 450 MHz with 128 MB 200
MW

RAM. The average CPU time was 136.3 s. 150

100
Table 1: Operating Cost ($)
50
On/Off UCVDW
Analytic Solution 0
Unit 4-state Model
4-state Model
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
1
3
5
7
9

Model Best Worst

245575.3 220328.4 219902.1 221058.2 hour
Analytical vdW Best On/Off Model
Figure 7 shows the best unit commitment found through the
proposed method (Table 1) and both the analytical method and Figure 8: 24-hour UC for Unit 5
the classical On/Off unit model. The difference between vdW
solution and the one analytically found is produced in the hour X. CONCLUSIONS
7. The proposed method could not find the lowest cost
combination for this hour (Table 2, Figure 8). The artificial molecule model permits to include four unit
operational states considering each state as an atom. This
Table 2: UC per hour 7 (PD = 736 MW) artificial model facilitates the implementation of the molecular
optimisation techniques based on classical mechanical
Unit Generation (MW) Cost
Method equations.
U1 U2 U3 U4 U5 ($)
The formulation of a van der Waals potential energy as a
Analytic 0.0 300 50 112.5 275.0 8076.6
function to be minimised permits to find the optimum UC
vdWBest 100 75 50 450.0 68.8 8397.5
solution in spite of its highly combinatorial and non-linear
characteristics. Furthermore, mapping the electrical variables
The reason for not finding the lowest cost combination of the (UC) onto van der Waals energy function allows to include not
proposed method lies in the random search of possible only the generating cost functions but also, implicitly, power
solution. Therefore, in choosing a different combination, the flow restrictions.
UC initial conditions are changed from the hour 7 onwards. The use of the SA as an optimisation algorithm permit, without
However, the cheapest overall 24-hour UC is found through any implementation difficulty, to solve the UC in its complete
the proposed model because the analytical solution finds the formulation giving excellent results and having low simulation
local hourly minimum and being this problem a non-linear one times. With the use of SA, lineal approximations of the UC
this approach does not guarantee a global minimum. formulation are not required and local minima are avoided.
Nevertheless, this global optimal solution cannot be
implemented in the SING system since it does not fulfil the
Finally, the artificial molecule model permits searching for 2. The VdW Algorithm For The UC
new analogies between a molecular system and a power system Step 1:Initialise parameters such as To, Mo, ρo, Atom,
with the objective of incorporating and simultaneously solving generation, demand, etc.
other problems such as the economic dispatch. Step 2:Considering initial data, evaluate initial van der Waals
potential energy
XI. APPENDIXES Meanwhile the system is not cold
1. Nonbonded pair generation list For Mo iterations at constant temperature
Van der Waals potential calculation requires the nonbonded Step 3: Generate nonbonded atom list (Appendix I)
pair atom list. A discrete uniform distribution is used. If the nonbonded atom list does not fulfil the restrictions
MATLAB has the UNIDRND command from the discrete given by equations (4) to (7),
uniform distribution. Thus, NBA=unidrnd(4,1,NU) returns a 1 Go to Step 3
by NU matrix of random numbers uniformly chosen from the Step 4: Calculate the costs given by equations (19) and
set {1,2,3,4}, where 1,2,3 and 4 correspond to {Off, Banking, (20) and calculate the total cost Ct
Minimum, Maximum} states. Step 5: Calculate van der Waals-UC potential value using
Given the Off and On minimum times that each unit must equation (17)
fulfil, in each generating unit a code is created to identify what Step 6: If the potential is diminished, accept this list.
atoms can be chosen during the generation of the list. The If the potential increases, accept or reject list
algorithm for the code generation is shown in Table 3 and in according to Boltzmann´s probabilistic criterion
Table 4 the algorithm for the nonbonded atom list can be [40].
found. End of iterations at constant temperature
Table 3: Code Generation Algorithm Step 7: Cool system in factor ρo
If the unit has been Off END
If the time it has been off is bigger than the
3. Characteristics And Parameters Of The SING System
minimum downtime.
Code=1; takes any state (Off, Banking, Table 5: 5-unit System Characteristics
Minimum, Maximum) Unit Minimum Maximum Minimum Minimum Stop
Power Power Uptime Downtime Cost
If not
[MW] [MW] [h] [h] [$/h]
Code=0; stays Off (Off) 1 25.0 100.0 6 2 5.4
End
End unit in Off 2 75.0 300.0 7 2 3.2
If the unit has been On 3 12.5 50.0 2 2 1.7
If the time it has been on is bigger than the minimum 4 112.5 450.0 12 2 12.0
uptime
Code=1; takes any state (Off, Banking, 5 68.8 275.0 8 2 4.8
Minimum, Maximum)
If not Table 6: 5-unit System Cost Coefficient
Code=2; stays on (Pmin, Pmax or Unit Cold Start Banking Start Production
Banking) b1 b2 b3 a b x2 x1 x0
End
End unit in On 1 55 20.588 0.20 8.5 25.988 0.0465 3.333 88.70
2 65 20.594 0.20 10.9 23.794 0.0138 4.437 286.00
Table 4: Nonbonded Atom List Algorithm
3 74 10.650 0.18 10.8 12.350 0.0292 3.220 26.00
While fulfilling the power flow restriction (Equation 4),
generate nonbonded atoms list (NBA) as long as the number 4 76 18.639 0.18 12.2 30.639 0.0135 5.706 589.05
of units (NU=5) 5 101 34.749 0.09 8.2 39.549 0.0346 2.104 355.03
For all units
If code = 1 The unit can be in any state
Set Atom = NBA Table 7: SING Demand
Hour Demand (MW) Hour Demand (MW)
If code = 2 The unit must remain operational
1 705 13 876
(Banking, Min, Max ) 2 708 14 876
If NBA = 1 If the list chooses the off atom 3 710 15 875
(Off) 4 711 16 877
Then choose Atom ∈ {2,3,4} 5 720 17 874
If code = 0 If the unit must remain (Off) 6 722 18 880
Set Atom = 1 7 736 19 880
End all units 8 750 20 873
End While 9 798 21 871
10 859 22 870
 11 870 23 800
12 875 24 742
XII. REFERENCES
[1] B. Flechner “Mathematical Optimisation Methods Applicable to
the Unit Commitment”, CIGRE Task Force 38-04-01:Unit
Commitment, Part II, February 1997.
[2] Baldick R. “The Generalized Unit Commitment Problem”, IEEE
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