Inexact Stabilized Benders' Decomposition Approaches, with Application to Chance-Constrained Problems with Finite Support

We explore modifications of the standard cutting-plane approach for minimizing a convex nondifferentiable function, given by an oracle, over a combinatorial set, which is the basis of the celebrated (generalized) Benders' decomposition approach. Specifically, we combine stabilization—in two ways: via a trust region in the L1 norm, or via a level constraint—and inexact function computation (solution of the subproblems). Managing both features simultaneously requires a nontrivial convergence analysis; we provide it under very weak assumptions on the handling of the two parameters (target and accuracy) controlling the informative on-demand inexact oracle corresponding to the subproblem, strengthening earlier know results. This yields new versions of Benders' decomposition, whose numerical performance are assessed on a class of hybrid robust and chance-constrained problems that involve a random variable with an underlying discrete distribution, are convex in the decision variable, but have neither separable nor linear probabilistic constraints. The numerical results show that the approach has potential, especially for instances that are difficult to solve with standard techniques

Large-scale unit commitment under uncertainty: an updated literature survey

The Unit Commitment problem in energy management aims at finding the optimal production schedule of a set of generation units, while meeting various system-wide constraints. It has always been a large-scale, non-convex, difficult problem, especially in view of the fact that, due to operational requirements, it has to be solved in an unreasonably small time for its size. Recently, growing renewable energy shares have strongly increased the level of uncertainty in the system, making the (ideal) Unit Commitment model a large-scale, non-convex and uncertain (stochastic, robust, chance-constrained) program. We provide a survey of the literature on methods for the Uncertain Unit Commitment problem, in all its variants. We start with a review of the main contributions on solution methods for the deterministic versions of the problem, focussing on those based on mathematical programming techniques that are more relevant for the uncertain versions of the problem. We then present and categorize the approaches to the latter, while providing entry points to the relevant literature on optimization under uncertainty. This is an updated version of the paper "Large-scale Unit Commitment under uncertainty: a literature survey" that appeared in 4OR 13(2), 115--171 (2015); this version has over 170 more citations, most of which appeared in the last three years, proving how fast the literature on uncertain Unit Commitment evolves, and therefore the interest in this subject

On generalized surrogate duality in mixed-integer nonlinear programming

The most important ingredient for solving mixed-integer nonlinear programs (MINLPs) to global -optimality with spatial branch and bound is a tight, computationally tractable relaxation. Due to both theoretical and practical considerations, relaxations of MINLPs are usually required to be convex. Nonetheless, current optimization solvers can often successfully handle a moderate presence of nonconvexities, which opens the door for the use of potentially tighter nonconvex relaxations. In this work, we exploit this fact and make use of a nonconvex relaxation obtained via aggregation of constraints: a surrogate relaxation. These relaxations were actively studied for linear integer programs in the 70s and 80s, but they have been scarcely considered since. We revisit these relaxations in an MINLP setting and show the computational benefits and challenges they can have. Additionally, we study a generalization of such relaxation that allows for multiple aggregations simultaneously and present the first algorithm that is capable of computing the best set of aggregations. We propose a multitude of computational enhancements for improving its practical performance and evaluate the algorithm’s ability to generate strong dual bounds through extensive computational experiments

On joint probabilistic constraints with Gaussian coefficient matrix

The paper deals with joint probabilistic constraints defined by a Gaussiancoefficient matrix. It is shown how to explicitly reduce the computation ofvalues and gradients of the underlying probability function to that of Gaussiandistribution functions. This allows to employ existing efficient algorithms forcalculating this latter class of function in order to solve probabilistically constrainedoptimization problems of the indicated type. Results are illustratedby an example from energy production

Addendum to the paper ‘Nonsmooth DC-constrained optimization: constraint qualification and minimizing methodologies’

International audienc

On probabilistic constraints induced by rectangular sets and multivariate normal distributions

In this paper, we consider optimization problems under probabilistic constraints which aredefined by two-sided inequalities for the underlying normally distributed random vector. Asa main step for an algorithmic solution of such problems, we derive a derivative formula for(normal) probabilities of rectangles as functions of their lower or upper bounds. This formulaallows to reduce the calculus of such derivatives to the calculus of (normal) probabilitiesof rectangles themselves thus generalizing a similar well-known statement for multivariatenormal distribution functions. As an application, we consider a problem from water reservoirmanagement. One of the outcomes of the problem solution is that the (still frequentlyencountered) use of simple individual probabilistic can completely fail. In contrast, the (more difficult) use of joint probabilistic constraints which heavily depends on the derivative formula mentioned before yields very reasonable and robust solutions over the whole time horizon considered