This paper presents a new approach for the contingency-constrained single-bus unit commitment problem. The proposed model explicitly incorporates an security criterion by which power balance is guaranteed under any contingency state comprising the simultaneous loss of up to generation units. Instead of considering all possible contingency states, which would render the problem intractable, a novel method based on robust optimization is proposed. Using the notion of umbrella contingency, the robust counterpart of the original problem is formulated. The resulting model is a particular instance of bilevel programming which is solved by its transformation to an equivalent single-level mixed-integer programming problem. Unlike previously reported contingency-dependent approaches, the robust model does not depend on the size of the set of credible contingencies, thus providing a computationally efficient framework. Simulation results back up these conclusions.

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We present a scenario decomposition framework based on Lagrangean decomposition for the multi-product, multi-period, supply investment planning problem considering network design and discrete capacity expansion under demand uncertainty. We also consider a risk measure that allows us to reduce the probability of incurring in high costs while preserving the decomposable structure of the problem. To solve the resulting large-scale two-stage mixed-integer stochastic linear programming problem, we propose a novel Lagrangean decomposition scheme. In this context, we compare different formulations for the non-anticipativity conditions. In addition to that, we present a new hybrid algorithm for updating the Lagrangean multiplier set, based on the combination of cutting-plane, subgradient and trust-region strategies. Numerical results suggests that different formulations of the non-anticipativity conditions have a significant effect on the performance of the algorithm. Moreover, we observe that the proposed hybrid approach has superior performance when compared with the traditional subgradient algorithm in terms of faster computational times for the problem addressed in this work.

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We present a new primal-dual algorithm for computing the value of the Lagrangian dual of a stochastic mixed-integer program (SMIP) formed by relaxing its nonanticipativity constraints. This dual is widely used in decomposition methods for the solution of SMIPs. The algorithm relies on the well-known progressive hedging method, * but unlike previous progressive hedging approaches for SMIP, our algorithm can be shown to converge to the optimal Lagrangian dual value. The key improvement in the new algorithm is an inner loop of optimized linearization steps, similar to those taken in the classical Frank-Wolfe method. Numerical results demonstrate that our new algorithm empirically outperforms the standard implementation of progressive hedging for obtaining bounds in SMIP.

This paper addresses the solution of a two-stage stochastic programming model for a supply chain investment planning problem applied to the petroleum products supply chain. In this context, we present the development of acceleration techniques for the stochastic Benders decomposition that aim to strengthen the cuts generated, as well as to improve the quality of the solutions obtained during the execution of the algorithm. Computational experiments are presented for assessing the efficiency of the proposed framework. We compare the performance of the proposed algorithm with two other acceleration techniques. Results suggest that the proposed approach is able to efficiently solve the problem under consideration, achieving better performance better in terms of computational times when compared to other two techniques.

We propose methods for improving the relaxations obtained by the normalized multiparametric disaggregation technique (NMDT). These relaxations constitute a key component for some methods for solving nonconvex mixed-integer quadratically constrained quadratic programming (MIQCQP) problems. It is shown that these relaxations can be more efficiently formulated by significantly reducing the number of auxiliary variables (in particular, binary variables) and constraints. Moreover, a novel algorithm for solving MIQCQP problems is proposed. It can be applied using either its original NMDT or the proposed reformulation. Computational experiments are performed using both benchmark instances from the literature and randomly generated instances. The numerical results suggest that the proposed techniques can improve the quality of the relaxations.

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