multiple solutions

An Optimal Solution is Not Enough: Alternative Solutions and Optimal Power Systems

  • Matthew Viens
  • William E. Hart
  • Michael C. Ferris
    • Categories Applications - Science and Engineering, Energy, Optimization Software and Modeling Systems Tags , , , ,

    Power systems modeling and planning has long leveraged mathematical programming for its ability to provide optimality and feasibility guarantees. One feature that has been recognized in the optimization literature since the 1970s is the existence and meaning of multiple exact optimal and near-optimal solutions, which we call alternative solutions. In power systems modeling, the use … Read more

    Extracting Alternative Solutions from Benders Decomposition

  • Matthew Viens
  • William E. Hart
  • Michael C. Ferris
    • Categories (Mixed) Integer Linear Programming, Linear Programming, Stochastic Programming Tags , , , , ,

    We show how to extract alternative solutions for optimization problems solved by Benders Decom- position. In practice, alternative solutions provide useful insights for complex applications; some solvers do support generation of alternative solutions but none appear to support such generation when using Benders Decomposition. We propose a new post-processing method that extracts multiple optimal and … Read more