PRESENTATION ON

UNIT COMMITMENT
Submittd by : Debasish
Choudhury

OUTLINE
Why Unit Commitment ?
What is Unit COMMITMENT ?
Difference between Economic Load

Dispatch and Unit Commitment

Unit Commitment procedure
Solving Unit Commitment Problem

Why unit
Commitment

What is Unit Commitment

Unit commitment plans for best set of units to be

available to supply the predicted or forecast load of the

system over a future time period.
Unit Commitment is therefore, one way to suggest,

just sufficient number of generating units with sufficient

amount of generating capacity to meet a given load
economically with sufficient reserve capacity to meet any
abnormal, operating condition.
Here we consider the problem of scheduling fossil fired

thermal units in which the aggregate costs( such as start

up cost, operating fuel costs & shut down costs ) are to be
minimized over a daily load cycle.

Difference between Economic Load Dispatch

And Unit Commitment

1. Economic Load Dispatch

Its a short term determination.
b) Dispatch at lowest possible cost
a)

2. Unit Commitment
a)

Unit commitment aims to make power

system reliable

CONSTRAINTS
Spinning reserve: It makes up the loss of
the most heavily loaded unit in a given period
of time.
Thermal Unit Constraint:
Minimum Up Time
Minimum down time
Crew constraint
start-up cost

Must-run: Some units are given this status

Fuel constraint

The
techniques
for
the
solution
of
the
unit
commitment problem are as
follows:
Priority-list scheme: the most efficient
unit is
loaded first
Dynamic Programming (DP):
Forward DP approach
Backward DP approach

Solution methods
Lets postulate the following situation:
A loading pattern must be established
for M periods
There are N units to commit
Any one unit or a combination of units
can supply the
loads.
The total number of combinations to try
each hour is
C (N, 1) + C (N, 2) + + C (N, N-1) + C
(N, N) = 2N1
C (N, j) is the combination of N items
taken j at a time.
Maximum number of possible

 If we have K generating units(no two identical), then there

are
(2k 1) number of combinations.
For example if K=4, then there are 15 theoretically possible
combinations.

 Assumptions:
The transmission line loss in the system is disregarded.
PgT=PD
PgT = Total plant output
PD = Total system load

Prerequisites:
Load forecasting

Fij(k) = Pi(k) + Tij(k)

Fij(k) = The cost associated with

Xi(k) stage
= combination
Xi of interval k
any
k
Pi(k) = minimum production cost of combination
Xi(k)
Tij(k) = cost of transition from combination Xi(k) to
combination Xj(k+1) between intervals k and k+1

Unit Commitment Procedure:

Dynamic Programming
We use Dynamic programming to solve Unit Commitment

problem.
Here we take an iterative relation embodying the principle that

starting with given combination Xi* at stage k, the minimum unit

commitment cost is found by minimizing the sum of the current
single-stage cost fij(k) plus the minimum cumulative cost Fij(k+1)
over the later stages of study.
This is one example of the principle of optimality, which states: if

possible path from A to C passes through intermediate point B ,

then the best possible path from B to C must be corresponding part
of the best path from A to C.
Computationally, we evaluate one decision at a time beginning with

the final stage N and carry the minimum cumulative cost function
backward in time to stage k to find the minimum cumulative cost
Fi*(k) for the feasible combination.

The problem is to find

out the minimum cost
from A
to N
At the terminal of
each
stage there is a set of
choices of nodes {Xi}
to
be chosen
The symbol Va (Xi,
Xi+1) represents the
cost

Cont.
The minimum cumulative cost decisions are recovered as we

sweep from stage 1 to stage N searching through the tables

already calculated for each stage. This computational
procedure is known as Dynamic Programming.2
It involves two sweeps through each stage k.
In the first sweep, which is computationally intensive, we work

backward computing and recording for each candidate

combination xi of stage k the minimum Fi(k) and its associated
xj(k+1).
The second sweep in the forward direction does not involve

any processing since with xi*(k) identified we merely enter the

table of results already recorded to retrieve the value F i*(k)
and its associated combination x j(k+1), which becomes
xi*(k+1) as we move to next forward stage.

fI(X1) : Minimum cost for the 1st

stage is obvious :
fI(B) : VI(A, B) = 5.
fI(C) : VI(A, C) = 2.
fI(D) : VI(A, D) = 3.
fII(E)= min [fI(X1) + VII(X1, E)]
{X1}
= min [5+11, 2+8, 3+ ] =10
X1 =B =C =D
fII(F) = min [, 6, 9] = 6, X1 = C
fII(G) = min [, 11, 9] = 9,X1 = D

(X2)

G
fII (X2)

10

9
Path X0X1
AD

AC

AC

Tracing back, the path of minimum

cost is found as
follows:
Stage
{Xi}
fi
1
B, C, D
5, 2, 3
2
E, F, G

Backward DP Approach:
The solution starts at the last interval and
proceeds back the initial point
Fcost(K, I) = Min [Pcost (K, I) + Scost(I, K: J,K+1) +
Fcost(K+1,J)]
where
Fcost (K, I) = minimum total fuel cost
Pcost (K, I) = minimum generation cost
Scost (I, K: J, K+1) = incremental start-up cost.
{J} = set of feasible states in interval K+1.

Forward DP Approach
The initial conditions are easily specified Previous
history of the unit can be computed at each stage
Fcost (K, I) = Min [Pcost (K, I) + Scost (K-1, L: K, I)
+ Fcost (K-1, L)]
where
Fcost (K, I) =least total cost to arrive at state (K, I)
Pcost (K, I) = production cost for state (K, I).
Scost (K-1, L: K, I) = transition cost for state (K-1,
L)
to state (K, I)
where state (K, I) is the Ith combination in hour K.

CONCLUSION
By

optimal
scheduling
of
generating units, we
can save time, power and cost
Important for industrial application
Dynamic
programming method
gives a
reliable solution

THANK YOU