Optimal Aggregated Peak Shaving Via Residential Demand Response: A Framework for Retailers

This paper proposes an optimization framework for retailers that are involved in demand response (DR) programs. In a first phase responsive users optimize their own household consumption, characterizing not only their smart home components but also their comfort preferences. Then, the retailer exploits in a second phase this preliminary non-coordinated solution to implement a peak … Read more

Optimal Design of Retailer-Prosumer Electricity Tariffs Using Bilevel Optimization

We compare various flexible tariffs that have been proposed to cost-effectively govern a prosumer’s electricity management – in particular time-of-use (TOU), critical-peak-pricing (CPP), and a real-time-pricing tariff (RTP). As the outside option, we consider a fixed-price tariff (FP) that restricts the specific characteristics of TOU, CPP, and RTP, so that the flexible tariffs are at … Read more

A mixed-integer optimization approach to an exhaustive cross-validated model selection for regression

We consider a linear regression model for which we assume that many of the observed regressors are irrelevant for the prediction. To avoid overfitting, we conduct a variable selection and only include the true predictors for the least square fitting. The best subset selection gained much interest in recent years for addressing this objective. For … Read more

There’s No Free Lunch: On the Hardness of Choosing a Correct Big-M in Bilevel Optimization

One of the most frequently used approaches to solve linear bilevel optimization problems consists in replacing the lower-level problem with its Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions and by reformulating the KKT complementarity conditions using techniques from mixed-integer linear optimization. The latter step requires to determine some big-M constant in order to bound the lower level’s dual feasible … Read more

Computing Feasible Points of Bilevel Problems with a Penalty Alternating Direction Method

Bilevel problems are highly challenging optimization problems that appear in many applications of energy market design, critical infrastructure defense, transportation, pricing, etc. Often, these bilevel models are equipped with integer decisions, which makes the problems even harder to solve. Typically, in such a setting in mathematical optimization one develops primal heuristics in order to obtain … Read more

The robust bilevel continuous knapsack problem with uncertain coefficients in the follower’s objective

We consider a bilevel continuous knapsack problem where the leader controls the capacity of the knapsack and the follower chooses an optimal packing according to his own profits, which may differ from those of the leader. To this bilevel problem, we add uncertainty in a natural way, assuming that the leader does not have full … Read more

Interdiction of a Mixed-Integer Linear System

A system-interdiction problem can be modeled as a bilevel program in which the upper level models interdiction decisions and the lower level models system operation. This paper studies MILSIP, a mixed-integer linear system interdiction problem, which assumes binary interdiction decisions and models system operations through a mixed-integer linear program. To solve large-scale instances of MILSIP, … Read more

Mixed-integer bilevel representability

We study the representability of sets that admit extended formulations using mixed-integer bilevel programs. We show that feasible regions modeled by continuous bilevel constraints (with no integer variables), complementarity constraints, and polyhedral reverse convex constraints are all finite unions of polyhedra. Conversely, any finite union of polyhedra can be represented using any one of these … Read more

Strong Convex Nonlinear Relaxations of the Pooling Problem

We investigate new convex relaxations for the pooling problem, a classic nonconvex production planning problem in which input materials are mixed in intermediate pools, with the outputs of these pools further mixed to make output products meeting given attribute percentage requirements. Our relaxations are derived by considering a set which arises from the formulation by … Read more

Numerically tractable optimistic bilevel problems

We consider fully convex lower level standard optimistic bilevel problems. We show that this class of mathematical programs is sufficiently broad to encompass significant real-world applications. We establish that the critical points of a relaxation of the original problem correspond to the equilibria of a suitably defined generalized Nash equilibrium problem. The latter game is … Read more