Hydro-electric unit commitment subject to uncertain demand

Hydro-electric power utilities convert the potential energy of water to electricity through the operation of generation turbines. Each turbine unit has an operating range and incurs a fixed start-up cost. The problem of determining which turbines should be operating at any point during the day whilst ensuring that the demand for electricity is satisfied is known as the unit commitment problem. The power utility is faced with de­ termining a 24-hour generation plan for each turbine given that the demand later in the day is not known with certainty. In this paper a method combining stochastic linear and stochastic dynamic programming is presented for determining a generation schedule for each turbine that hedges against the uncertainty in the future electricity demand.