Security constrained unit commitment considering multiple regions

Minimizing the energy supply costs of an electric power system by optimally committing the least number of generating units is important. Use of methods that combine cost based priority lists and dynamic programming (DP) technique have dominated the power industry to generate the optimal unit commitment schedule. The New Brunswick power system was using a priority order based method for the purpose of unit commitment prior to restructuring.;After deregulation of electric utilities in North America, several electricity markets have been established. New Brunswick Power System has also been restructured and New Brunswick System Operator (NBSO) operates the New Brunswick electricity market. With these changes in place, there is an urgent need to redefine the unit commitment challenge that accommodates structural changes introduced by deregulation and solve it using an appropriate optimization tool.;Thus this research work is aimed at the development of a security constrained unit commitment (SCUC) model. It is specifically meant to model multiple regions of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Islands. The formulation and solution of the Security Constrained Unit Commitment challenge is developed to address the NBSO's requirements. It is proposed to solve this SCUC challenge using a Mixed Integer Quadratic Programming technique based on the branch and Bound method.