Adaptive simulated annealing schedule to the unit commitment problem

This paper presents an approach for solving the unit commitment problem based on a simulated annealing algorithm with an adaptive schedule. The control parameter, temperature, is adapted to the cost levels on which the algorithm operates during the annealing process. This shortens the time taken to find a good solution meeting all constraints and improves the convergence of the algorithm. The operators specific to this problem, mutation and transposition, are used as the transition operators. The method incorporates time-dependent start-up costs, demand and reserve constraints, minimum up and down time constraints and unit power generation limits. There are different definitions of the objective function for the feasible and infeasible solutions. Test results showed an improvement in effectiveness compared to results obtained from simulated annealing with a static schedule, genetic algorithm and other techniques. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.