A unit commitment expert system [power system control]

An expert system-based consultant has been developed to assist power system operators in scheduling the operation of generating units. Problems with existing unit-commitment algorithms were identified, and the knowledge of an experienced power system operator and a unit-commitment-programming expert were combined to create an expert system rule base. To use the expert system as a unit-commitment consultant, the operator provides information in response to questions that the expert system uses along with the rules either to ask for more information or to reach a conclusion. The expert system answers the most-frequent questions raised by system operators and improves the unit-commitment solution results by indicating how to adjust input data. It includes the operational constraints not included in the unit-commitment base algorithm and results in more-efficient program execution. Numerical examples and test results show that this approach provides a better and operationally more-acceptable unit-commitment solution