Payment Mechanisms for Electricity Markets with Uncertain Supply

This paper provides a framework for deriving payment mechanisms for intermittent, flexible and inflexible electricity generators who are dispatched according to the optimal solution of a stochastic program that minimizes the expected cost of generation plus deviation. The first stage corresponds to a pre-commitment decision, and the second stage corresponds to real-time generation that adapts … Read more

A deterministic algorithm for solving multistage stochastic programming problems

Multistage stochastic programming problems are an important class of optimisation problems, especially in energy planning and scheduling. These problems and their solution methods have been of particular interest to researchers in stochastic programming recently. Because of the large scenario trees that these problems induce, current solution methods require random sampling of the tree in order … Read more

Dynamic Stochastic Approximation for Multi-stage Stochastic Optimization

In this paper, we consider multi-stage stochastic optimization problems with convex objectives and conic constraints at each stage. We present a new stochastic first-order method, namely the dynamic stochastic approximation (DSA) algorithm, for solving these types of stochastic optimization problems. We show that DSA can achieve an optimal ${\cal O}(1/\epsilon^4)$ rate of convergence in terms … Read more

An enhanced L-Shaped method for optimizing periodic-review inventory control problems modeled via two-stage stochastic programming

This paper presents the development of an enhanced L-Shaped method applied to an inventory management problem that considers a replenishment control system based on the periodic review (R,S) policy. We consider single-item one-echelon problems with uncertain demands and partial backorder that are modeled using two-stage stochastic programming. To enable the consideration of large-scale problems, the … Read more

Inexact cuts for Deterministic and Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming applied to convex nonlinear optimization problems

We introduce an extension of Dual Dynamic Programming (DDP) to solve convex nonlinear dynamic programming equations. We call Inexact DDP (IDDP) this extension which applies to situations where some or all primal and dual subproblems to be solved along the iterations of the method are solved with a bounded error. We show that any accumulation … Read more

A Benders squared (B2) framework for infinite-horizon stochastic linear programs

We propose a nested decomposition scheme for infinite-horizon stochastic linear programs. Our approach can be seen as a provably convergent extension of stochastic dual dynamic programming to the infinite-horizon setting: we explore a sequence of finite-horizon problems of increasing length until we can prove convergence with a given confidence level. The methodology alternates between a … Read more

Bi-objective autonomous vehicle repositioning problem with travel time uncertainty

We study the problem of repositioning autonomous vehicles in a shared mobility system in order to simultaneously minimize the unsatisfied demand and the total operating cost. We first present a mixed integer linear programming formulation for the deterministic version of the problem, and based on that we develop an extended formulation that is easier to … Read more

Discrete Approximation of Two-Stage Stochastic and Distributionally Robust Linear Complementarity Problems

In this paper, we propose a discretization scheme for the two-stage stochastic linear complementarity problem (LCP) where the underlying random data are continuously distributed. Under some moderate conditions, we derive qualitative and quantitative convergence for the solutions obtained from solving the discretized two-stage stochastic LCP (SLCP). We ex- plain how the discretized two-stage SLCP may … Read more

Optimizing power generation in the presence of micro-grids

In this paper we consider energy management optimization problems in a future wherein an interaction with micro-grids has to be accounted for. We will model this interaction through a set of contracts between the generation companies owning centralized assets and the micro-grids. We will formulate a general stylized model that can, in principle, account for … Read more

Revisiting Approximate Linear Programming Using a Saddle Point Approach

Approximate linear programs (ALPs) are well-known models for computing value function approximations (VFAs) of intractable Markov decision processes (MDPs) arising in applications. VFAs from ALPs have desirable theoretical properties, define an operating policy, and provide a lower bound on the optimal policy cost, which can be used to assess the suboptimality of heuristic policies. However, … Read more