Exploiting soft constraints within decomposition and coordination methods for sub-hourly unit commitment

• Soft constraints are exploited within the Surrogate Lagrangian Relaxation framework. Synchronous parallel algorithm utilizes multiple cores to improve performance. Near-optimal solutions for sub-hourly unit commitment based on Polish system. Unit (UC) is an important problem solved a daily basis strict time limit. While hourly UC currently used, they may not be flexible enough accommodate growing changes of demand and increasing penetration intermittent renewables. Sub-hourly therefore recommended. This, however, will significantly increase complexity even under deterministic setting because considerable number intervals, leading drastic numbers system coupling binary variables as compared that UC. Consequently, existing methods able obtain good limit large problems. In this paper, considered with innovative exploitation “soft constraints” - do need strictly satisfied but their violations penalized by predetermined coefficients. in conjunction our recent “Surrogate Absolute-Value Relaxation” approach where “relaxed problem” required fully optimized, facilitates formation resolution new type subproblems soft (e.g., reserve transmission capacity constraints) relaxed. This then leads reduction multipliers, decreased computational requirements, improved solution quality. To further enhance speed, version developed. Testing results demonstrate effectiveness robustness both sequential versions at finding high-quality