A Multi-Agent Approach to Unit Commitment
Problems
T. Nagata, Member, IEEE, M. Ohono, non-Member, J. Kubokawa, Member, IEEE,
H. Sasaki, Member, IEEE and H. Fujita, Member, IEEE
Abstract This paper proposes a multi-agent system for
solving unit commitment problems. Multi-agent is a new
paradigm for developing software applications. Coordinating
the behavior of autonomous agents is a key issue in agent
oriented programming techniques today. In this paper, we
develop a power system unit commitment application using
multi-agent architecture. Our model has the following
characteristics: (1) the system consists of a single facilitator
agent, several generator-agents, and two kinds of mobile agent.
(2) The facilitator agent is developed to act as a manager for the
process by using the singleton design pattern. The mobile agent
and generator agent have simple negotiation strategies. (3)
Message object is developed to communicate between agents
using KQML-like object. The proposed approach is applied to a
simple system, and the results show that the multi-agent system
is able to find optimal solutions for unit commitment problems.
Index TermsAgent technology, Mixed Integer Program-
ming, Multi-Agents, Unit Commitment Problem
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE demand of intelligent information processing is
heightening more and more in proportion to changes in
the business environment surrounding electric power systems
such as energy problems, environmental problems and
deregulation, and in proportion to the need to handle
complicated, enlarged, decentralized and opened power
systems. With the promotion of deregulation of electric
power systems and participation of independent power
producers (IPPs), it is becoming extremely difficult for the
power system operator to handle all control information into
a single control center computer. Therefore, paradigm change
in control system is required from a concentrated to a
distributed system, in line with what has happened in other
fields in present-day society and industry.
Unit commitment (UC) is the problem of determining the
start-up and shut-down schedule of thermal units to meet
forecasted demand over certain time periods ahead (24 hours
to a week) and belongs to a class of combinational
Takeshi Nagata, Masumi Ohno and Junji Kubokawa are with Hiroshima
Institute of Technology, 2-1-1 Miyake, Saeki-ku, Hiroshima, 731-5193 Japan,
(e-mail: nagata@cc.it-hiroshima.ac.jp, kubokawa@me.it-hiroshima.ac.jp)
Hiroshi Sasaki is Professor of Hiroshima University, 1-4-1 Kagamiyama,
Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8527, Japan (e-mail: sasaki@psl.sys.hiroshima-u.ac.jp)
Hideki Fujita is with Research & Development Center, Chubu Electric Power
Co. Inc, 20-1,Kitasekiyama Ohdaka-cho Midori-ku, Nagoya, 459-8522, Japan
(e-mail: Fujita.Hideki@chuden.co.jp)
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optimization problems. This problem is one of mixed integer
programming which consists of 0-1 variables that stand for
on and off status as well as the real power output. The
proposed methods so far are classified into the heuristic
method, the dynamic programming [1], the Lagrange
relaxation method [2, 3], the branch-and-bound method [4,5]
and the evolutionary programming method [6-9]. We have
studied UC solutions using genetic algorithms and the
Lagrange relaxation method in consideration of LNG fuel
constraints [10] with successful results. Since UC in the new
deregulated business environment requires the coordination
of all market participants including IPPs, it is difficult to
collect all information from these parties because of the
commercial secrets. In this situation, uncertainties for
utilization of the generators will be increased, since the
inspection and maintenance work of IPPs generators will be
carried out on the basis of owners decision making. These
considerations indicate that UC must be decided by obtaining
the latest (on-demand) information from IPPs. In other words,
it means that UC must be decided on the assumption that all
the information comes from the distributed server computer
at each IPPs site.
Most research of UC problem were based on the
concentrated (centralized) systems, where there is little
research based on distributed systems.
In this paper, we will propose a UC method using a multi-
agent approach on the distributed system environment.
Although we assume that the proposed system would be
implemented on the distributed servers, we have placed
several agents onto single computer system for simplicity in
the prototype system. The prototype multi-agent system
solves minimization problem of total operational cost by
traveling a mobile agent to each generator agent.
The features of the proposed method are:
(1) In order to solve the problem efficiently, we restrict the
kind of agent which carries out the decision making
process, and furthermore reduce the number of message
exchanges as few as possible during UC scheduling. The
proposed system consists of three types of agent: a single
facilitator agent (FAG), several generator agents
(GAG) and two mobile agents.
(2) Two types of mobile agents have been introduced to
improve the global search efficiently. That is, up
mobile agent (UpAG) with the function of increasing
power generation output, and the down mobile agent
(DwAG) with the function of decreasing power
 generation output. In the proposed multi-agent system,
B. Formulation
depending on the demand-generation balance condition,
either UpAG or DwAG travels around the network and a) Objective Function
negotiates with GAGs. UC problems can be formulated as an optimization
(3) GAGs, which would be placed on the server computer at problem with an objective of minimizing the total operational
each generator/IPPs, hold a few simple rules and update cost subject to some constraints.
T I
the UC status (on/off) and the power output min C(pit ,u ti ) = min c i( pti ,u ti )
t t
autonomously. t
u i, pi
t
u i, pi t =1 i =1

(4) FAG notifies the status of all GAGs to the black board,
( )
T I
t 1
= min FC i pi ui + ST i ui 1 ui
t t t
sends the request message of the power regulation to
u , p t =1 i =1
t t
i i
DwAG or UpAG, and waits for the report from the
mobile agent concerned. The singleton design pattern (1)
t
[11] is adopted in the proposed system, because only one where C( pi , uti) corresponds to the total operational cost and
FAG can be exist on a center server connecting to other can be divided into each unit.
distributed servers. T I

(5) The message exchange between agents is performed by
using a message object that is similar to KQML
(Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language).
The proposed multi-agent system has been implemented on a
PC with Java language, and applied to a 10-unit model
system. The result shows that the proposed system is able to
obtain solutions almost the same as the dynamic
programming method [12], which minimizes the total
operational cost. The solution time is about 70 seconds
including the display of intermediate results (PC, 550MHz).
II. FORMULATION OF THE UNIT COMMITMENT PROBLEM
A. Explanation of Variables
To formulate the problem mathematically, the following
notation is introduced:
i : Index of generator ( i = 1,L, I )
t : Index of period ( t = 1,L,T )
l : Index of transmission line ( l = 1,L, L )
ui
t
: Commitment status (1 or 0) of unit i at period t
t operation of each unit individually are termed local or
pi : Power generation of unit i at hour t
ci : Power system operating cost of unit i
FCi : Fuel cost of unit i ($)
ST i : Start-up cost of unit i ($)
t
D : Forecasted demand at period t (MW)
R
t
: Spinning reserve at period t (MW)
C( pti , uit ) = c i(pit ,u ti ) (2)
t =1 i =1
In General, the mathematical formulation of UC problem
is to minimize two kinds of cost. The first term in (1)
indicates the production cost, which is directly related to the
fuel cost and is formulated as:
t
FC i (pit ) = a i0 + ai1 pi + ai2 (pti )2 (3)
where aij is the coefficient of the fuel cost.
The second term corresponds to the start-up cost for each
unit. The cost of this term is related to the temperature of the
boiler. The cooler the boiler temperature leads to the higher
the start-up cost. Therefore, the start-up cost of each unit can
be simply defined as the following formulation.
HSC i if MDT i < DT i MDT i + CSH i
ST i = (4)
CSC i if DT i > MDT i + CSH i
b) Constraints
There are two types of constraints that must be satisfied by
a UC schedule. Those affect units as a group is called
system or coupling constraints while those constrain the
horizontal constraints. Here, in the following constraints,
(5) and (6) are the system level, and (7) and (8) are the local
level constraints.
Supply and Demand Balance Constraint
This constraint ensures that the total power generation
output is equal to the forecasted demand at each period.
I

p
max t
pi : Upper power limit of unit i (MW) i
D t = 0 t = 1,L, T (5)
min i=1
pi : Lower power limit of unit i (MW) Spinning Reserve Constraint
HSCi : Hot start cost of unit i ($) The spinning reserve constraint is necessary to maintain
CSC i : Cold start cost of unit i ($) the reliability of the power system. Normally, the spinning
MDT i : Minimum down time of unit i (h) reserve requirement is given by the ratio (%) of the total
MUT i : Minimum up time of unit i (h) demand at each period.
I

u
max
DT i : Time for which unit i has been off-line (h) t
pi Dt R t 0 t = 1,L, T (6)
i
CSH i : Cold start time of unit i (h) i=1

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Generation Lower and Upper Limit Constraints
The power generation output of each generation must be
ranged between the lower and upper limits of generation
capacity.
min t max
u i pi pi u i pi
t t
(7)
Technical Constraints
The technical constraints of minimum start-up time and
minimum shut-down time are considered in this research.
III. UNIT COMMITMENT MULTI-AGENT SYSTEM
In this section, we explain an approach that achieves UC,
as described previously, by using a multi-agent system. Fig. 1
shows the structure of the proposed multi-agent system for
UC. This figure shows that the multi-agent system consists of
three generator agents (GAGs), a single facilitator agent
(FAG) and two types of mobile agent (DwAG and UpAG).
First, the objective function minimization can be achieved
by the mobile agent (UpAG or DwAG), which minimizes the
total operational cost. The mobile agent, which is requested
to make a schedule from FAG, goes around the traveling
route of the network, and decides the generation schedule by
using the strategy that each unit can generate power with up
to its maximum value in the order of increasing the full-load
average production cost [12], which is adopted frequently in
actual UC with heuristic methods. The full-load average
production cost is expressed as follows:
max
a i0 + ai1 pi
FLACi = max (8)
pi
From the above equation, the full-load average production
cost is an approximation because it doesnt include the non-
linear fuel cost characteristic of the unit. Note that there is a
case that doesnt have the cheapest operational cost at any
period, since each unit generates the power with maximum
output value in the ascending order of the full-load average
production cost in the proposed method.
On the other hand, the system constraints (i.e., the supply
and demand balance constraints, and the spinning reserve
constraints) will be met after the mobile agent migrates to
GAG along the traveling route and negotiates with it. The
local constraints (i.e., the lower and upper limits, and the
minimum start-up time, the minimum shut-down time) will
be satisfied by individual GAG. UC scheduling process is
started by informing scheduling request from FAG to either
DwAG or UpAG, and the concerned mobile agent decides
the schedule by migrating to each GAG. Here, DwAG is
started up when the demand shows a tendency to decrease.
On the contrary, UpAG is started up when the demand shows
a tendency to increase.
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migrate
GAG
request/inform migrate
DwAG
FAG GAG
UpAG migrate
request/inform
migrate
GAG
Fig. 1 A multi-agent unit commitment system
A. Explanation of Composed Agent
In the following, we explain about agents that comprise the
proposed multi-agent system.
(1) Decreasing production mobile agent (DwAG)
DwAG is produced and started up by FAG when the
demand shows a tendency to decrease. This agent migrates to
GAG along the traveling route made by FAG, decides the
production schedule, and informs FAG. Here, the schedule is
decided by performing a message exchange with GAGs.
(2) Increasing production mobile agent (UpAG)
UpAG is produced and started up by FAG when the
demand shows a tendency to increase. In the same manner as
DwAG, this agent migrates to GAG along the traveling route
made by FAG, decides the production schedule and informs
FAG.
(3) Facilitator agent (FAG)
FAG produces either DwAG or UpAG in response to the
condition in the decision making process (to satisfy demand-
generation balance constraints at the consideration period).
Moreover, this agent determines the traveling route from the
units operational status registered on the Black Board, and
sends the message with the traveling route attached, which
starts the scheduling process, to the corresponding mobile
agent.
(4) Generator agent (GAG)
GAG is the agent corresponding to the generators / IPPs in
the electric power system. This agent has fixed data such as
unit name, the minimum and maximum power, the fuel cost
coefficient, and variable data such as the power production
value and the status of the unit at the current time.
B. Explanation of Messages
The communication between agents in the system is based
on a message object similar to KQML, as shown in Fig 2. In
this figure, each message consists of performative, contents,
sender, receiver and arguments. Table 1 shows the major
performative and its meanings used in the proposed system.
 PerformativeContentsfrom Sender to GAG1
Receiver withArguments UpAG 150-600
500->600
Fig. 2 Structure of message object
migrate
TABLE 1 PERFORMATIVE AND ITS MEANING UpAG GAG2
UpAG 100-400
Performative Meanings FAG +200 0->200

Request Execution of the request action

GAG3
Query Query for information 50-200
0
Inform Inform on information
Propose Execution of the proposed action (b) Migration from GAG1 to GAG2
Agree Execution of the agreed action GAG1
150-600
Refuse Execution of the refused action UpAG 500->600

IV. IMPLEMENTATIONS inform UpAG GAG2

UpAG 100-400
FAG +200 0->200
In order to illustrate the proposed scheme, we will use a
migrate
simple model system shown in Fig 1. For the sake of
GAG3
simplicity, this simple system considers only the generation 50-200
0
and demand balance constraint. Table 2 and 3 show the data
of GAGs and the forecasted demand respectively. The (c) Migration from GAG2 to FAG
traveling route is in the order of GAG1, 2 and 3 Fig. 3 An explanation of mobile agent
corresponding to the full load average cost.
(Step1) Migration to GAG1
TABLE2 GENERATOR DATA TABLE 3 DEMAND DATA First, for the purpose of increasing generation 300 (MW),
GAG1 GAG2 GAG3 Time (MW) UpAG migrates to GAG1 with the highest priority along the
Pmin (MW) 150 100 50 1 1000 traveling route and sends a message (request), which prompts
Pmax (MW) 600 400 200 2 750 an increase in generation, to GAG1. Then, GAG1, having
a0 ($) 510 310 150 3 500 received the request message, performs power generation
a1 ($/h) 7.2 7.85 7.97 4 800 output adjustment of +100 (MW) in order to increase the
a2 ($/h*h) 0.00142 0.00194 0.00482 power generation, and returns an agree message (agree) to
MUT(h) 5 4 3 UpAG. In this case, UpAG migrates to GAG2 to make up for
MDT(h) 5 1 1 the shortage of power generation (200MW) with the aim of
CSC($) 9000 1100 900 increasing production. Fig. 3(a)-(b) show the above-
HSC($) 4500 550 450 mentioned situations. If GAG1 is working at maximum
CSH(h) 5 4 3 power, GAG1 returns a refuse message (refuse) to UpAG
Here, we explain about the action of the mobile agent in because GAG1 cannot increase power generation. In this case,
the case of an increase in demand. For example, at period 4, UpAG also migrates to the second priority GAG2 for the
it is the case that the demand increases from D(3)=500 (MW) purpose of increasing generation. In both cases, if the power
to D(4)=800 (MW). At this point, because of a tendency for generation meets the demand because of output adjustment of
demand to increase, UpAG is produced and started up by each GAG, UpAG migrates to FAG and reports the result to
FAG. FAG.
In what follows, we outline the action of UpAG using Fig.
3. At period 3, GAG1 is only on status and its power (Step2) Migration to GAG2
generation is 500(MW). UpAG migrates to the second priority GAG2 as shown in
Fig 3(b). After completing the migration, UpAG sends the
request message for start-up (request) to GAG2 because
GAG1
migrate UpAG 150-600 GAG2 is shut-down. GAG2, which receives the message,
+300 500->600 changes the status from off to on, adjusts power generation
request
D(4)=800 output to 200 (MW), and returns an agree message (agree) to
UpAG GAG2 UpAG. In this case, UpAG migrates to FAG and informs a
100-400
FAG 0 successful result, because power balance between generation
and demand has been met.
GAG3
50-200
0 (Step3) Migration to FAG
(a) Migration to GAG1
At period 4 (time=4), since the scheduling process is
completed, UpAG migrates to FAG and informs the results.
FAG, which receives the results, also produces either UpGA

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or DwGA depending on the power balance between
generation and demand at the next period, and starts it up. TABLE 4 SIMULATION RESULTS
(a) Case of ignoring the start-up cost and the technical constraints
In case of decreasing power generation agent DwAG is
GAG1 111111111111111111111111
produced and started up by FAG, the same processes as
GAG2 111111111111111111111111
increasing case are performed except for the traveling route.
When these steps are carried out over the time considered GAG3 000001111111111111111100
under the control of FAG, UC process is completed. GAG4 000111111111111111111100
Meanwhile, we can consider the above-mentioned processes GAG5 000000011111111000111000
as a contract of power trade (buying and selling) by GAG6 000000000111100000011000
negotiating between the mobile agent and GAGs. It is a key- GAG7 000000000011000000000100
point for the proposed system that orientates the distributed GAG8 000000000001000000000000
system to reflect uncertainty, such as the availability of GAG9 000000000000000000000000
generators and the amount of power generations for sale, by GAG10 000000000000000000000000
negotiating between agents.
Cost ($) $545,009 (+0.07%)
DP $544,636
V. SIMULATION

A. Simulation Conditions
In order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed
system, a prototype code has been implemented on PC with
Java language and applied to a 10-unit model system. The
generator data and the forecasted demand data are shown in
reference [7]. The traveling route is in the order of GAG 1, 2,
4, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 corresponding to the full load
average cost. In order to simplify the simulation, the spinning
reserve constraints are removed.
B. Simulation Results
Table 4 shows the simulation results of a 10-unit model
system over a 24-hour period. In this table, 0 and 1 denote
the off and on status respectively. We have compared the
proposed method with the dynamic programming method
(DP) [12] to confirm the accuracy of solutions.
First, table 4(a) shows the results in the case of ignoring
the start-up cost and the technical constraints (i.e., the
minimum start-up time and shut-down time). The on-off
status of UC obtained in this case is the same as the results of
DP method. However, the total operational cost is 0.07%
higher than the result of DP method. This difference is owing
to the method of the load dispatching, that is, since the pro-
posed method tries to allocate the generation up to the
maximum value of the on-line unit in order of traveling route,
optimally economical loading dispatching is not always
realized. If the proposed method is modified so that the
mobile agent is able to decide the proper loading (i.e., solves
the economic load dispatching problem) after commitment
status is fixed and informs the results to each GAG, it may
achieve the same results as DP method.
(b) Case of with the start-up cost and the technical constraints
GAG1 111111111111111111111111
GAG2 111111111111111111111111
GAG3 000001111111111111111000
GAG4 000111111111111111111100
GAG5 000000011111111000000000
GAG6 000000000111000000111000
GAG7 000000000011100000011100
GAG8 000000000001000000010000
GAG9 000000000000000000010000
GAG10 000000000000000000000000
Cost ($) $556,080 (+0.37%)
DP $554,041
Table 4(b) shows the results in the case of considering both
the start-up cost and the technical constraints. The obtained
result for the proposed method is 0.37% higher than the result
of DP method. There is a possibility to have lower total
operational cost for the proposed method, if we apply proper
load dispatching method to the committed generators. The
half-toned part of the Table 4(b) indicates the difference
between the proposed and DP method. These differences
comes from the situation that, in the proposed system, the
mobile agent tries to start up units along the traveling route
and migrates to the next GAG when the minimum down time
is not satisfied, while DP method stores all available
transition paths at the forward process and selects the optimal
path for the backward process. In other words, the proposed
method does not search all available transition paths.
Although the proposed method could certainly add such
functions to the mobile agent, it is meaningless for the
problem of the practical size because it is anticipated easily
that the revised method falls into the situation such as the
curse of dimensionality of DP.
From the above results, it can be seen that the proposed
method can obtain solutions comparable to the results of DP
method, although there is room for improvement of the
proposed method. The computational time for a 10-unit over
a 24-hour period is about 70 seconds including the output of

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the intermediate results (PC, 550MHz). We have assumed [12] A.J.Wood, B.F.Wollenberg, Power Generation Operation and Control,
that GAG is placed on the server computer of each power John Willey & Sons, Inc. (1996)

producer (including IPP) in practice, though in this

simulation each GAG is arranged in the same computer for
simplification. Since the proposed method adopts the RMI,
the Class-Loader, and the Object Serialization Library
provided in Java environment, the mobile agent in this
system can migrate to a different server computer.

VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we have proposed an approach that models the
decision making process of UC with a multi-agent system
and implements it as the first step to examine the possibility
of using a distributed UC system in the new deregulated
electric power system business environment.
We have utilized three types of agent (a single Facilitator
agent, several Generator agents and two kinds of Mobile
agent) in the proposed multi-agent system. We have
confirmed that the obtained results are comparable to the
results of DP method for total operational cost minimization
problem. Therefore, though more detailed examination is
necessary in the future, this paper can be regarded as a
contribution to one way of implementing a distributed UC
multi-agent system.
In the future, we will expand the proposed system into a
new multi-agent system suitable to the new business
environment of the electric power system that not only
minimizes total operational cost but also takes into
consideration maximization of the profit of each power
producer.

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