Unit commitment - a survey and comparison of conventional and nature inspired algorithms

Unit commitment problem UCP which has a significant influence on secure and economic operation of power systems is considered to be one of the most difficult optimisation problems due to the number/type of variables and constraints present. To provide quality solutions to UCP several solution methodologies that include deterministic and stochastic search algorithms have been proposed. Deterministic and stochastic algorithms have their own share of advantages and disadvantages. In this paper, we provide a literature survey on the algorithms developed for UCP and try to compare their performance on some standard benchmark problems by taking the results from the literature. The literature survey along with the performance comparison will be useful for the researchers in the area of power engineering.