Fuzzy and simulated annealing based dynamic programming for the unit commitment problem

A dynamic programming technique with a fuzzy and simulated annealing based unit selection procedure has been proposed in this paper for the solution of the UC problem. The curse of dimensionality of the dynamic programming technique is eliminated by minimizing the number of prospective solution paths to be stored at each stage of the search procedure. Heuristics like priority ordering of the units, unit grouping, fast economic dispatch based on priority ordering, avoidance of repeated economic dispatch through memory action have been employed to make the algorithm fast. The proposed method produced comparable results with the best performing methods found in the literature.