Solving the unit commitment problem of hydropower plants via Lagrangian Relaxation and Sequential Quadratic Programming

We consider the optimal scheduling of hydropower plants in a hydrothermal interconnected system. This problem, of outmost importance for large-scale power systems with a high proportion of hydraulic generation, requires a detailed description of the so-called hydro unit production function. In our model, we relate the amount of generated hydropower to nonlinear tailrace levels; we also take into account hydraulic losses, turbine-generator efficiencies, as well as multiple 0-1 states associated with forbidden operation zones. Forbidden zones are crucial to avoid nasty phenomena such as mechanic...