World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology

International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering

Vol:1, No:11, 2007

Unit Commitment Solution Methods

Sayeed Salam

integer programming [1]-[3].

Abstract—An effort to develop a unit commitment approach In the literature, dynamic programming and Lagrangian
capable of handling large power systems consisting of both thermal relaxation have been used extensively to develop industry-
and hydro generating units offers a large profitable return. In order to grade unit commitment programs. Their major advantage
be feasible, the method to be developed must be flexible, efficient
seems to be the requirement of reasonable computation time
and reliable. In this paper, various proposed methods have been
described along with their strengths and weaknesses. As all of these when compared to other mathematical approaches.
methods have some sort of weaknesses, a comprehensive algorithm In dynamic programming, it is relatively easy to add
that combines the strengths of different methods and overcomes each constraints that affect operations at an hour (such as power
other’s weaknesses would be a suitable approach for solving balance constraints) since these constraints mainly affect the
industry-grade unit commitment problem. economic dispatch and solution method. However, the
International Science Index, Energy and Power Engineering Vol:1, No:11, 2007 [Link]/Publication/11207

dynamic programming suffers from the curse of

Keywords—Unit commitment, Solution methods, and dimensionality. Hence, it is required to limit the commitments
Comprehensive algorithm.
considered at any hour through some simplification
techniques such as truncation and fixed priority ordering. This
I. INTRODUCTION
simplification, particularly for large scale systems, can lead to

T HE unit commitment problem determines the combination

of available generating units and scheduling their
respective outputs to satisfy the forecasted demand with the
suboptimal schedules.
The utilization of Lagrangian relaxation in production unit
commitment problems is much more recent than the dynamic
minimum total production cost under the operating constraints programming methods. It has the advantage of being easily
enforced by the system for a specified period that usually modified to model characteristics of specific utilities.
varies from 24 hours to one week. Attempts to develop rigid Lagrangian relaxation method is more advantageous due to its
unit operating schedules more than one week in advance are flexibility in dealing with different types of constraints. It is
extremely curtailed due to uncertainty in hourly load forecasts relatively easy to add unit constraints. Lagrangian relaxation is
at lead times greater than one week. flexible to incorporating additional coupling constraints that
Besides achieving minimum total production cost, a have not been considered so far. The only requirement is that
generation schedule needs to satisfy a number of operating constraints must be additively separable in units. Such
constraints. These constraints reduce freedom in the choice of constraints could be area reserve constraint, area interchange
starting up and shutting down generating units. The constraint, etc. To incorporate such constraint into the
constraints to be satisfied are usually the status restriction of framework of Lagrangian relaxation, a Lagrangian multiplier
individual generating units, minimum up time, minimum is defined for each constraint for each time period and the
down time, capacity limits, generation limit for the first and constraints are adjoined into the objective function of the
last hour, limited ramp rate, group constraint, power balance relaxed problem. The Lagrangian relaxation method is also
constraint, spinning reserve constraint, hydro constraint, etc. more flexible than dynamic programming because no priority
The high dimensionality and combinatorial nature of the ordering is imposed. The amount of computation varies
unit commitment problem curtail attempts to develop any linearly with the number of units. Hence, it is computationally
rigorous mathematical optimization method capable of solving much more attractive for large systems.
the whole problem for any real-size system. Nevertheless, in One weakness of the Lagrangian relaxation method is that
the literature, many methods using some sort of approximation the dual optimal solution seldom satisfies the once relaxed
and simplification have been proposed. The available coupling constraints. Another weakness is the sensitivity
approaches for solving unit commitment problem can usually problem that may cause unnecessary commitments of some
be classified into heuristic methods and mathematical units. Therefore only a near optimal feasible solution can be
programming methods. The proposed mathematical expected. However, the degree of suboptimality decreases as
programming approaches are dynamic programming, the number of units increases.
Lagrangian relaxation, Benders decomposition and mixed Aoki et al. [4] presented the most promising Lagrangian
relaxation approach developed so far. Tong and Shahidehpour
Manuscript received August 12, 2007. [2] improved it further through the inclusion of post-
Sayeed Salam is with the Dept of Computer Science and Engineering, processor. Two new efficient techniques namely non-
BRAC University, 66 Mohakhali, Dhaka, Bangladesh (phone: 8802-8824051
Ext 4018; fax: 8802-8810383; e-mail: sayeed@[Link]). discretization of generation levels in the solution process of

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 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering
Vol:1, No:11, 2007

single unit dynamic programming and inclusion of ramp rate such as simulated annealing [17], tabu search [18], genetic
constraints are proposed by Guan et al. [5]. Kuloor et al. [6] algorithms [19]-[21], and greedy randomized adaptive search
show environmental constraint incorporation technique in unit procedure [22].
commitment problem formulation.
Due to the imperfections of the dynamic programming III. MIXED INTEGER PROGRAMMING
algorithm, the application of a unit commitment expert system Integer programming optimizes integer function of integer
[7], [8] has been proposed to supplement this method. The variables. A modification of standard integer programming
constraints, which are difficult or impractical to be that allows non-integer function is known as mixed-integer
implemented in unit commitment algorithm, can be handled programming (MIP). MIP treates the objective and constraint
by this expert system. In this paper, various proposed methods functions as continuous and the variables as integers.
for unit commitment have been described. Finally a Branch and bound is one of the techniques used for the
comprehensive algorithm [9], [10] for solving industry-grade solution of the integer problem. It is a technique to solve a
unit commitment problem is described. discrete variable problem by solving a sequence of simpler
problems derived from the original problem. In solving using
II. HEURISTIC METHODS the branch and bound method, one needs to define 1) the
problems in the branch and bound three, 2) the method of
Heuristic methods are non-rigorous computer aided
solving each problem on the tree, and 3) the method of
empirical methods, which make the unit commitment
searching the tree. The branch and bound tree is fully
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decisions according to a pre-calculated priority list and described if one defines the problem corresponding to the top
incorporate all the operating constraints heuristically. node of the tree and the method of obtaining the children of
Baldwin et al. [11] have used a heuristic approach for unit any node [1].
commitment. All units are shut down and started up in strict Dillon et al. [23] have formulated the unit commitment
priority order. The priority list is prepared on the basis of the problem as a linear MIP problem. Then they have used
average full load cost of each unit, where the average full load standard integer programming algorithm for solving the
cost is the net heat rate at full load times the fuel cost. commitment schedule.
Kerr et al. [12] have proposed heuristic approach that One of the proposed MIP methods [24] transforms the
begins with an initial feasible schedule and then follows the linear optimization problems that arise during the search
sequence of steps for adjusting the starting and stopping times procedure in the branch and bound algorithm into capacitated
accordingly to reduce the cost of operation. transhipment problems. These are then solved efficiently by a
The heuristic method proposed by Happ et al. [13] uses a network-based solution procedure.
sub-optimizer to get a feasible and near optimal commitment. Bond and Fox [25] presented an algorithm based on a
Then that method employs an optimizer to further optimize combination of mixed integer-linear and dynamic
the schedule. The optimizer uses a sequence of steps programming. Mixed integer-linear programming is used to
repeatedly until no further reduction in cost is observed. determine feasible combinations of units at each scheduling
point, while a novel dynamic programming approach
Heuristic approach to the short-term unit commitment
identifies promising scheduling routes in the time domain.
problem has also been implemented using an expert system
MIP models proposed so far have employed linear cost
[14], [15].
functions although more accurate cost models are available.
Heuristic methods have the following advantages [16]:
To date, branch and bound techniques have only been
• are flexible and allow for the consideration of employed on moderate sized systems using linear models [1].
practical operating constraints On the contrary, many available economic dispatch algorithms
use quadratic cost curves. Moreover, the present trend is
• feasible solutions if there are any are usually
toward improved modeling of unit input/output characteristics
obtained
with more detailed non-linear models. The MIP based
• computational requirements in terms of memory approach, using only linear models, was found to take long
and running time are modest computation time. The MIP formulation of unit commitment
would become a very large problem demanding extremely
The main shortcoming of heuristic methods is that they
long computation time if applied to a typical generation mix
cannot guarantee the optimal solutions or even furnish an
with more detailed non-linear models.
estimate of the magnitude of their sub-optimality. This aspect
becomes rather significant in large-scale power systems, as a
IV. BENDERS DECOMPOSITION
small percentage, e.g. 0.5%, in the costs of unit commitment
schedules represents a substantial financial annual saving. In Benders Decomposition method [26]-[29], the unit
Therefore, it is advantageous to employ more rigorous commitment problem is decomposed into a master problem
methods compared with heuristics methods to generate more involving only the discrete commitment variables and a
economical solutions as the size of a system grows, despite the subproblem involving the continuous generation variables.
requirement of comparatively large computational efforts. The subproblem corresponds to the economic dispatch
problem with a given commitment. The marginal costs, for
More recently, metaheuristic approaches have been used

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 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering
Vol:1, No:11, 2007

each hour, from the subproblem are used to constrain the units, then the state space size is 31 which is a reasonable
allowed commitments in the master problem. The master number.
problem supplies commitments to the economic dispatch The approaches [31], [36] used selection techniques for
problem. The master problem and the economic dispatch choosing the most promising states from all possible states
subproblem are solved iteratively until the solution converges. and implemented approximate economic dispatch subroutines
Any economic dispatch routine can be applied for solving the to reduce computer running time requirement. Variable
subproblem. window truncated dynamic programming that adjusts the
The major difficulty in Benders decomposition approach is window size according to the incremental load demands in
the determination of the solution of the master problem, which adjacent hours and controls the program execution time have
is still regarded as a large scale integer optimization problem. been proposed. Kumar and Palanisamy [37] proposed a two-
Turgeon [26] has solved the master problem by a variational step process that uses a direct computation Hopfield neural
approach and a branch and bound algorithm whereas network to generate economic dispatch. Then using dynamic
Baptistella and Geromel [27] have solved it by relaxation in programming the generator schedule is produced.
the master level of Benders decomposition approach. In order The approaches [7], [8] have an integrated expert system
to improve the efficiency, some of the constraints which are into the truncated dynamic programming based unit
difficult to handle, such as nonlinear minimum up and down commitment program to check and modify commitment
time constraints, are replaced by simpler constraints in the results.
actual formulation of the scheduling algorithm. For instance,
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Habibollahzadeh and Bubenko [28] did not use the minimum VI. LAGRANGIAN RELAXATION
up and down time constraints in their mathematical model but, In Lagrangian relaxation approaches, unit commitment
instead, included a constraint that allowed only one problem is formulated in terms of 1) a cost function, that is the
commitment per day for each unit. Ma and Shahidehpour [29] sum of terms each involving a single unit, 2) a set of
dealt with transmission-constraint by introducing a proper constraints involving a single unit, and 3) a set of coupling
constraint called Benders cut. constraints (the generation and reserve requirements), one for
each hour in the study period, involving all units. Cohen and
V. DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING Sherkat [1] have reported that an approximate solution to this
problem can be obtained by adjoining the coupling constraints
Dynamic programming acts as an important optimization onto the cost using Lagrangian multipliers. The cost function
technique with broad application in many areas [30]. Dynamic (primal objective function) of the unit commitment problem is
programming decomposes a problem into a series of smaller relaxed to the power balance and the generating constraints
problems, solves the small problems, and develops an optimal via two sets of Lagrangian multipliers to form a Lagrangian
solution to the original problem step-by-step. The optimal dual function. The dual problem is then decoupled into small
solution is developed from the subproblem recursively. subproblems which are solved separately with the remaining
In its fundamental form, the dynamic programming constraints. Meanwhile, the dual function is maximized with
algorithm for unit commitment problem examines every respect to the Lagrangian multipliers, usually by a series of
possible state in every interval. Some of these states are iterations.
rejected instantly because they are found infeasible. But even, Unfortunately, duality theory has shown that for nonconvex
for an average size utility, a large number of feasible states problems there will be a duality gap between the cost obtained
will exist and the requirement of execution time will stretch by solving the relaxed problem and the optimal cost of the
the capability of even the largest computers. Hence many original problem. Since the commitment decision variables are
proposed techniques used some sort of simplification and discrete, the unit commitment problem is nonconvex. Due to
approximation to the fundamental dynamic programming the nonconvexity of the unit commitment problem, the dual
algorithm [31]. solution seldom satisfies the power balance constraints and the
The approach, first used by Lowery [32], and later refined reserve constraints. Hence, in addition to solving the dual
by Ayoub and Patton [33], selected unit generation output as a problem, a suboptimal feasible solution is usually searched
state variable and on-line capacity as the stages. Ayoub and near the dual optimal point. Even though the dual optimal
Patton included probabilistic techniques for reserve solutions may violate the feasibilities of the original problem,
determination in the developed code. they may usually provide sharp lower bounds.
A typical approach [34], [35] determines some nominal Muckstadt and Koenig [38] employed Lagrangian
commitment, which is determined to be good for each hour. relaxation to replace the common linear programming
Choices that have to be considered are minimum number of relaxation approach, which dropped the integrality
units, in the priority ordering, needed to meet the reserve requirements of the variables, in the fathoming process of
constraints and the result of the above priority list branch and bound algorithms. This causes a significant
optimization. A set of units in the priority list about the improvement of computational efficiency compared with
nominal commitment are then chosen for optimization - the previous branch and bound algorithms.
units below that set are assumed to be committed while the Based on the sharp bound provided by the Lagrangian dual
units above that set are assumed to be off. If this set contains 5 optimum, it is expected that a suboptimal feasible solution
near the dual optimal point can be accepted as a proper

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International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering
Vol:1, No:11, 2007

solution for the primal problem. Merlin and Sandrin [39] generation levels of two consecutive hours is difficult to deal
presented a more direct and fairly efficient technique based on with. A straightforward application of dynamic programming
this idea. In this algorithm, a modified subgradient method technique may lead to suboptimal results as illustrated by
was used which incorporated the search of the suboptimal Guan et al. [5].
feasible solution along the direction for maximizing the dual Guan et al. [5] have presented an approach that does not
function. discretize generation levels and handles ramp rate constraints
Some methods have been suggested which can be systematically. The thermal subproblem without ramp rate
implemented in systems with fuel constraints. An additional constraint is solved by first constructing a state transition
set of multipliers has been introduced to associate the fuel diagram where the optimal generation levels of all up states
constraints with the primal function. Cohen and Wan [40] are computed without discretizing generation levels. Dynamic
proposed a successive approximation approach for altering the programming technique is then applied with only a few well-
three sets of multipliers. Three iteration loops were structured states. This eliminates the difficult trade-off
constructed to update these multipliers independently, between computational requirements and the accuracy as
according to their corresponding constraints. The iteration of needed by most approaches that discretize generation levels.
these three sets of multipliers was done by enclosing the three Ramp rate constraints are relaxed by introducing an additional
iteration loops with an external loop. Once the dual optimal set of multipliers for a unit with the constraints. The
had been found, the commitment of the fuel-constrained units subproblem is then solved as if there were no ramp rate
would be fixed. Then, any violations of the constraints were constraint. An intermediate level is introduced to update this
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adjusted by changing the commitment schedule and the set of multipliers.

outputs of the remaining generating units, which included The algorithm presented by Yan et al. [41] follows the
thermal units operating without fuel constraints. These Lagrangian relaxation approach [5]. But, in addition to
adjustments were within an iteration loop that successively thermal units, hydro units have been included in the problem
solved the primal subproblems and modified the set of formulation. Given the set of Lagrange multipliers, a hydro
multipliers associated with reserve constraints. unit subproblem is solved by a merit order allocation method,
Aoki et al. [4] presented an algorithm which also dealt with and a thermal unit subproblem is solved by using dynamic
the fuel-constrained unit commitment problem. In the programming without discretizing generation levels.
algorithm, the dual optimal solution was determined by an Kuloor et al. [6] describe a method of solving
iteration loop which updated the multipliers associated with environmentally constrained thermal unit commitment.
power balance constraints and fuel constraints simultaneously. Environmental consideration is added as a second objective
The multipliers associated with fuel constraints were updated function to the conventional unit commitment. The problem is
by introducing an additional iteration loop within the previous thus converted from this dual-objective minimization model
one. Compared with Cohen and Wan’s work, this method into a single-objective model.
introduced a more appropriate coupling between the three sets
of multipliers. In addition, the variable metric method was VII. COMPREHENSIVE ALGORITHM
employed instead of the subgradient method for updating the
multipliers. These two modifications improved the efficiency As the size of a power system increases, the savings
of the process for finding the dual optimal. The feasible potential of unit commitment in absolute terms increases
solution was determined by successive modification of the although in percentage terms it remains the same. The effort to
three sets of multipliers near the dual optimal and the solution develop a unit commitment approach that is able to handle
of the primal subproblem. large systems consisting of both thermal and hydro generating
Tong and Shahidehpour [2] have developed an algorithm to units therefore offers a large profitable return. In order to be
deal with limitations of the available Lagrangian relaxation feasible, the method to be developed must be flexible,
methods for scheduling large scale systems which consist of efficient and reliable. This requires that nonlinear functions
thermal, fuel constrained and hydro generating units. The such as thermal generation cost, water discharge
basic building block of the algorithm follows the Lagrangian characteristics, transmission loss and emission constraints
relaxation approach directly [4]. The Lagrangian dual optimal must be incorporated into the method. Furthermore, the
is first solved and a feasible solution is searched by modifying proposed method must be capable of dealing with other
the multipliers. Once a feasible solution is obtained, a new operational constraints.
post-processor based on the application of linear programming The potential of unit commitment can be realized by
is applied to find the final dispatch of units and improve the employing a more rigorous mathematical programming
schedule by decomitting unnecessary units for further saving technique. Of the four techniques surveyed, Benders
in cost. decomposition is the least promising and is reflected by the
In many approaches [2], [4], [39], the thermal subproblem is lack of published work reporting its success. Even though
solved by using dynamic programming that discretizes mixed integer programming is rigorous, its demand on
generation levels and the ramp rate constraint is not computing resources is prohibitive. It may be feasible if
considered. The discretization of generation levels causes a parallel computing using a fast processor is employed.
trade-off between computational requirements and the Dynamic programming also suffers the same problem as MIP,
accuracy. On the other hand, if the generation levels are not but the truncated version reduces true computing requirement
discretized, the ramp rate constraint that couples the albeit at the possible loss of accuracy. Lagrangian relaxation is

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International Journal of Energy and Power Engineering
Vol:1, No:11, 2007

the least rigorous of the mathematical programming as cycling of gas turbine and steam turbine units, group
techniques but offers the best performance in computing constraints, etc.
requirements. Under the current computing technology, it
seems that Lagrangian relaxation is the viable mathematical VIII. CONCLUSION
programming technique to solve large-scale unit commitment.
The savings potential of unit commitment in absolute terms
This is reflected by the fact that they are widely reported in
increases with the increase of power system size. The effort to
the literature.
develop a unit commitment approach that is able to handle
To get an industry-grade efficient algorithm based on
Lagrangian relaxation, the techniques like non-discretization large systems consisting of both thermal and hydro generating
of generation levels, handling of ramp rate and environmental units therefore offers a large profitable return. In order to be
constraints [5], [6] can be incorporated in the algorithm [2], feasible, the method to be developed must be flexible,
[4]. Transmission loss can be incorporated using a general efficient and reliable. Many proposed methods have been
transmission loss formula [42] whose expression has a similar described along with their strengths and weaknesses. It seems
quadratic form to the B matrix loss formulation. The that the comprehensive algorithm that combines the strengths
generation cost and water discharge rate can be represented as of different methods and overcomes each other’s weaknesses
continuously increasing quadratic function of the generation. would be a suitable approach for solving industry-grade unit
Finally, an efficient unit commitment expert system [8] can be commitment problem.
developed as a supplement to the Lagrangian relaxation
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