Genetic-based unit commitment algorithm

This paper presents a new unit commitment scheduling algorithm. The proposed algorithm consist of using a genetic algorithm with domain specific mutation operators. The proposed algorithm can easily accommodate any constraint that can be true costed. Robustness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by comparison to a Lagrangian relaxation unit commitment algorithm on three different electric utilities. Results show the proposed algorithm finds good unit commitment schedules in a reasonable amount of computation time. Included in the appendix is an explanation of the true costing approach.