Reliability Constrained Unit Commitment Using Simulated Annealing

This paper proposes a new method for the incorporation of the unit unavailability and the uncertainty of the load forecast in the solution of the short-term unit commitment problem. The above parameters are taken into account in order to assess the required spinning reserve capacity at each hour of the dispatch period, so as to maintain an acceptable reliability level. The unit commitment problem is solved by a simulated annealing algorithm resulting in near-optimal unit commitment solutions. The evaluation of the required spinning reserve capacity is performed by implementing reliability constraints, based on the expected unserved energy and loss of load probability indexes. In this way, the required spinning reserve capacity is effectively scheduled according to the desired reliability level. Numerical simulations have proven the efficiency of the proposed method