An Extended Integral Unit Commitment Formulation and an Iterative Algorithm for Convex Hull Pricing

Abstract

To increase market transparency, independent system operators (ISOs) have been working on minimizing uplift payments based on convex hull pricing theorems. Along this direction, in this paper, based on the analysis of specific generator features in the Midcontinent ISO (MISO) system, besides reviewing integral formulations for several special cases, we develop two integral formulations of a single generator that can capture these features. We then build a compact convex hull pricing formulation based on these integral formulations, which guarantees to obtain an exact convex hull price by solving a large-scale linear program. Meanwhile, to address the computational challenges caused by the large-scale MISO system, we propose innovative iterative algorithms with convergence properties, plus a complementary algorithm, to obtain an approximated convex hull price. The case studies on MISO instances with and without transmission constraints indicate that our algorithms lead to an exact convex hull price for all numerical studies and, the solutions can be obtained within 20 minutes.