A Multi-Stage Warm-Start Deep Learning Framework for Unit Commitment

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Za'ter, Muhy Eddin, Van Boven, Anna, Hodge, Bri-Mathias, Baker, Kyri
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Za'ter, Muhy Eddin
Van Boven, Anna
Hodge, Bri-Mathias
Baker, Kyri
author_facet Za'ter, Muhy Eddin
Van Boven, Anna
Hodge, Bri-Mathias
Baker, Kyri
contents Maintaining instantaneous balance between electricity supply and demand is critical for reliability and grid instability. System operators achieve this through solving the task of Unit Commitment (UC),ca high dimensional large-scale Mixed-integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem that is strictly and heavily governed by the grid physical constraints. As grid integrate variable renewable sources, and new technologies such as long duration storage in the grid, UC must be optimally solved for multi-day horizons and potentially with greater frequency. Therefore, traditional MILP solvers increasingly struggle to compute solutions within these tightening operational time limits. To bypass these computational bottlenecks, this paper proposes a novel framework utilizing a transformer-based architecture to predict generator commitment schedules over a 72-hour horizon. Also, because raw predictions in highly dimensional spaces often yield physically infeasible results, the pipeline integrates the self-attention network with deterministic post-processing heuristics that systematically enforce minimum up/down times and minimize excess capacity. Finally, these refined predictions are utilized as a warm start for a downstream MILP solver, while employing a confidence-based variable fixation strategy to drastically reduce the combinatorial search space. Validated on a single-bus test system, the complete multi-stage pipeline achieves 100\% feasibility and significantly accelerates computation times. Notably, in approximately 20\% of test instances, the proposed model reached a feasible operational schedule with a lower overall system cost than relying solely on the solver.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_21891
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Multi-Stage Warm-Start Deep Learning Framework for Unit Commitment
Za'ter, Muhy Eddin
Van Boven, Anna
Hodge, Bri-Mathias
Baker, Kyri
Systems and Control
Artificial Intelligence
Maintaining instantaneous balance between electricity supply and demand is critical for reliability and grid instability. System operators achieve this through solving the task of Unit Commitment (UC),ca high dimensional large-scale Mixed-integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem that is strictly and heavily governed by the grid physical constraints. As grid integrate variable renewable sources, and new technologies such as long duration storage in the grid, UC must be optimally solved for multi-day horizons and potentially with greater frequency. Therefore, traditional MILP solvers increasingly struggle to compute solutions within these tightening operational time limits. To bypass these computational bottlenecks, this paper proposes a novel framework utilizing a transformer-based architecture to predict generator commitment schedules over a 72-hour horizon. Also, because raw predictions in highly dimensional spaces often yield physically infeasible results, the pipeline integrates the self-attention network with deterministic post-processing heuristics that systematically enforce minimum up/down times and minimize excess capacity. Finally, these refined predictions are utilized as a warm start for a downstream MILP solver, while employing a confidence-based variable fixation strategy to drastically reduce the combinatorial search space. Validated on a single-bus test system, the complete multi-stage pipeline achieves 100\% feasibility and significantly accelerates computation times. Notably, in approximately 20\% of test instances, the proposed model reached a feasible operational schedule with a lower overall system cost than relying solely on the solver.
title A Multi-Stage Warm-Start Deep Learning Framework for Unit Commitment
topic Systems and Control
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.21891