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IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 14, No. 4, November 1999

A Genetic Algorithm for Solving the Unit Commitment Problem of a Hydro-Thermal Power System
A. Rudolf
Program and System Engineering Power System Control SIEMENS AG Austria

R. Bayrleithner
Program and System Engineering Power System Control SIEMENS AG Austria

I.
Abstract: The paper presents a two layer approach to solve the unit commitment problem of a hydro-thermal power system. The first layer uses a genetic algorithm (GA) to decide the onloff status of the units. The second layer uses a non-linear programming formulation solved by a Lagrangian relaxation to perform the economic dispatch while meeting all plant and system constraints. In order to deal effectively with the constraints of the problem and prune the search space of the GA in advance, the difficult minimum upldown-time constraints of thermal generation units and the turbinelpump operating constraint of storage power stations are embedded in the binary strings that are coded to represent the onloff-states of the generating units. The other constraints are handled by integrating penalty costs into the fitness function. In order to save execution time, the economic dispatch is only performed if the given unit commitment schedule is able to meet the load balance, energy, and beginlend level constraints. The proposed solution approach was tested on a real scaled hydro-thermal power system over a period of a day in half-hour time-steps for different GA-parameters. The simulation results reveal that the features of easy implementation, convergence within an acceptable execution time, and highly optimal solution in solving the unit commitment problem can be achieved. Koywords: Unit commitment; Genetic algorithms; Optimization techniques PE-014-PWRS-0-03-1999 A paper recommended and approved by Ihe IEEE Power System Operations Committee of Ihe IEEE Power Engineering Society for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems. Manuscript submitted January 22, 1998: made available for printing March 25, 1999.

INTRODUCTION

The principal objective of the unit commitment (UC) of power systems is to schedule the generation units in order to serve the load demand at the minimum operating cost while meeting all plant and system constraints. Generation scheduling involves the determination of the start up- and shut down-time points and the generation levels for each unit over a given scheduling period. The schedule is subject to a number of system and unit constraints. Some major constraints that must be taken into account include: The total power output must meet the load demand plus system losses. There must be enough spinning reserve to cover any shortfall in generation. Energy constraints must he met. The generation of each unit must be within its minimum and maximum allowable power output range. The minimum up- and down-times of thermal generation units mnst be considered. Ramp rates limits for thermal generation units must not be violated. Level constraints of storage reservoirs must be met. The unit commitment problem is defined mathematically as a non-linear, non-convex, large-scaled, mixed integer combinatorial Optimization problem, often involving thousands of 0-1 decision values as well as continuous variables, and a wide spectrum of equality and inequality constraints. The optimal solution to such a complex combinatorial optimization problem can be obtained only by a global search technique. A number of methods have been proposed previously for solving such a problem and each method has involved one or more difficulties, such as: the high computational time for medium and large scale systems may be prohibitive reliance on heuristic, hence sub optimal solutions

0885-8950/99/$10.00 0 1999 IEEE

1461

difficulty in obtaining feasible solutions

H
C(U)

E.g. these methods have included: Priority List based methods [9] Simplex method [lo] Branch and Bound [lo] Lagrangian relaxation [ 111 Dynamic Programming [IO] To offer an alternative to the existing methods a two layer approach to solve the unit commitment problem has been applied. The first layer uses a genetic algorithm to decide the on/off status of the units The second layer uses a non-linear programming formulation solved by a Lagrangian relaxation to perform the economic dispatch. The constraints of the UC problem, such as minimum up/down-time constraints of thermal generation units and the turbine/pump operating constraint of storage power stations, are difficult to handle in the GA since the genetic operations performed directly on the decision variables (i.e. the half-hourly on/off scheduling of the units) are prone to violating the constraints. To deal effectively with the constraints of the problem, the difficult minimum up/down-time constraints and the turbinelpump operating constraint are cmbedded in the binary strings which are inherently needed in the GA. The other constraints are handled by integrating penalty costs into the fitness function. The performance is implemented in the Soft Computing Studio ECANSEB 1131. The following sections describe the problem formulation of the hydro-thermal UC problem, the general scheme of the GA, the performance of the problem solution and simulation results when tested on a real scaled power system.
11.

U
U,,,
OCi Pi,,
SCi

number of time-steps cost function of the unit commitment problem decision matrix of Ui,t variables for i = I....N decision variable odoff status of unit i at time-step t: Ui,,E (0,1] operating cost of unit i [ATSlh] generation output of unit i at time-step t [MW] start-up cost of unit i [ATS/Start]

B. System Constraints

I . LoadBalance

$U, * P,,,D, I =
lii

t = l....H

(2)

D,

system load demand at time-step t 2. Spinning Reserve

[MW]

ULI * P nlill
i=i

I, I

<D t

(4)

P,,,
P,,
R,

i.t

i,t

t = 1...H minimum power output of unit i at time-step t [MW] maximum power output of unit i at time-step t [MW] system reserve at time-step t [.MWl

PROBLEM FORMULATION

3. Energv Constraints
The objcctive function [l] and associated constraints [1,12] of the UC problem are as follows. A.

Emin T 5 CCU.I* Pi,r*T L Emrr T

, . i
lii

N S

(5)

Objective Function

The objective function of the UC problem is composed of operating and start-up costs of the generating units and can be expressed as

E,i,, S T E,,

minimum energy delivery [MWh] number of time-steps of the delivery period length of a time-step [h] maximum energy delivery [MWh]

C ( U ) = C CUi.t*OCi(Pi,r) +
ic,

13

,=,

SCi Ui,<* ( 1 -Ui. I

. i ) J

MIN (1)

C. Unit Constraints

I.

Generation Output Limits

,I>.bX

t N

index of units index of time-steps number of units

P n m , , I 5 P,, 5 P I

r, I

i = I...N : t = 1.... (6) H

1462

2 Ramp Rates Limits .

Pt,r-P8,t-i SUpRampi,~

(7)
(8)

Pi, I - I - Pt,I 2 DwnRampi, t UpRampi,, DwnRampi,,

i = l...N; t = 1,...H ramp-up rate limit of the unit i per time-step [MWh] ramp-down rate limit of the unit i per time-step [MWh]

3. Minimum ,Up- and Down-Time Constraints

,-t

=1
Ui,l = 0

I="
,I -

U,,c Z MinUpTimi (1 -U,.

I)

(9) (10)

Object is executed for each chromosome of the population. As noted in thc flowcharts, the decision variables of the cost function are decomposed into integer on/off variables and the continuous real power outputs. The former ones are coded in binary strings which are embedded the minimum up/downtime constraints Eq.(9)/Eq.(lO) and the turbine/pump operating constraint. The latter are determined by an economic dispatch program after checking and evaluation of load balance, energy, and begidend level constraints. Detailed in following sections are the proposed constraint handling techniques to cope with the constraints of the unit commitment problem, the economic dispatch program, and the genetic operations on the unit commitment problem.

2 MinDwnTimi

l.,d

i = I....N time-step at which unit i is started np minimum up-time of unit i [hl MinUpTimi time-step at which unit i is shut down td minimum down-time of unit i [h] MinDwnTimi
t,

Initinlire the populntian with random strings and adjust the Control pnmmeters of genetic nlgarithm

Evaluate the fitness and ~ a l c u l a t ~

f 4. Level Limits o a Storage Reservoir

level rnln x

< levelx. < level

I

milX

(11)
Stopping rules .certain number of generations
NO

K
level mink level k.t level mri
5.

k =1 ....K ; t =1 ....H number of storage power stations minimum level of storage reservoir k [m] level of storage basin k at time-step t [ml maximum level of storage reservoir k [m]

satisfied 1

BegidEnd Level Constraint o a Storage Reservoir f

= k =I ....K (12) levelhzzjprhleveL,,<ih level begill level of storage reservoir k at the begin of the optimization period [ml level of storage reservoir k at the end of the level end k optimization period [m]

Apply geneti0 operations Selection, Elitism. Recombination, and

Mutation to the coded binary string matrix

E2zEl
Output the commitmen1 results

6. Turbine and Pump Operating Constrain1

Simultaneous operating of turbines and pumps of storage power stations is not possible.
111.

Fig. 1. Flowchart of the CA-Object

PERFORMANCE OF THE PROBLEM SOLUTION

A. Basic Function
The solution to the hydro-thermal unit commitment problem is performed by two objects, the Genetic Algorithm @A)Object (described in Fig.l) and the Hydro-Thermal Commitment (HTC)-Object (described in Fig.2). The HTC-

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Rend input data: Load curve and chnraclerislics( e . ~cost! curves) of Keneralingunifs .

to translate back 10 the actual commitment schedule

Fig. 3. The proposed Coding Scheme, Matrix U,

to determine the real power oulput

Cnicu1nte
fitness= OpelRting cost + startcost + pennlty costs due the violation of tho rpinning reserve and

fitness = penalty cost due the violation of load balance. energy. :md begidend level constraints

-75Oh-OBJECI

Fig. 2. Flowchart of the HTC-Object

The proposed coding scheme translates the decisions variables U into their binary string representations U,, also in a matrix form. The minimum upldown-time constraints and the turbine/pump operating constraint are integrated in the representations. As shown in Fig.3, each row of the matrix stands for the coded operating states of one generating unit during the H-time-steps period. A row of the matrix is divided into several substrings, e.g. Sil, Siz, Si,, ...., for the ithrow. Each of the substrings indicates one operating state on (with leading bit of 1) or off (with leading bit of 0) and the number of time-steps, for which the on-state (or off-state) lasts. This number is obtained by summing the time-steps, which are indicated by the decimal value of the bits following the leading bit and the,minimum up-time (or down-time). The length of the substring nj for unit i is given by following the function.
[ log, (ni mlX

B. Constraint Handling Techniques

f 1. Coding Scheme o the Unit Commitment

11

for ni

>1

ni =

The binary variables U,, to be determined in the unit commitment (UC) problem denote the odoff-states of the unit i at time-step t, where two index variables, i for the unit and t for the time-step, are involved. Hence, the decision variable U is expressed as a two-dimensional matrix of elements Ui,, with the row indexed by unit i and the column by time-step t. If the actual binary decision variables U were directly employed in the genetic algorithm (GA), the operations of selection, crossover, and mutation on the current feasible solutions (i.e. solutions with all constraints satisfied) would almost all yield infeasible solutions (i.e. solntions with at least one constraint violated) in the next generation, in particular the minimum up/down-time constraints and the turbinelpump operating constraint. As a result, the search process becomes very inefficient for the GA to achieve the optimal or near-optimal solution. To overcome this problem, the proposed coding scheme [l], shown in Fig.3, is used.

{I otherwise where nirnnxmax (minimum uptimei, minimum down-timq) = and [ x ] is the greatest integer less than or equal to x
For example, unit i has a minimum up-time of 2 time-steps and a minimum down-time of 4 time-steps. Then, the substring length n, for unit i is three bits. The substring 1101 denotes that the unit is in an upstate and the up-state lasts for 3 time-steps, i.e. 1 time-step (indicated by the binary value 01) plus a 2-time-step minimum uptime. Similarly, the substring 011 I means that the unit is in an off-state for 7 timesteps, i.e. 3 time-steps (indicated by 11) plus a 4-time-step minimum down-time. On the other hand, if the substring length is one bit, in particular for contracts and storage power stations, each bit in the corresponding row of the matrix directly represents the schedule of the unit in each time-step of the H time-steps period. Since we considers an one day UC problem in timesteps with a length of half an hour, i.e. 48 time-steps for a day (H=48), therefore, 48 hits are given for each row of the

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matrix U, in Fig. 3. in order to cope with contract and storage power station units. After decoding, if the corresponding actual commitment schedule covers a period longer than H time-steps, the scheduling interval beyond is ignored for further evaluation. Furthermore, to consider the initial status of generating units (on/off-time before the study period), the first substring has twofold indications depending on whether the initial on-time (or off-time) has satisfied the minimum up-time (or downtime) constraint. If the constraint has been satisfied, the first substring represents an on or off operating state (with a leading hit of 1 or 0) and the number of time-steps the onstate or off-state lasts (denoted by the rest of the bits). Otherwise, the leading hit is ignored (i.e. it means the same state as the initial one by default), and the other bits imply the number of time-steps the on-state (or off-state) carries through as well as the minimum up-time (or down-time) minus the initial on-time (or off-time). For example, if the initial state of unit i bas been down for 2 time-steps, then the first substring Si, , 1101, indicates that the unit is down (the same as the initial state, so the leading bit is ignored) and the down time is 3 time-steps, i.e. 1 time-step (indicated by binary value 01) plus a 4-time-step minimum down-time minus the initial 2-time-step down-time. In this manner, the constraints of minimum up/down t'm e can he embedded in the binary string of decision variables and are always satisfied implicitly. For storage power stations it is efficient to embed the turbinelpump operating constraint into the coded binary strings. Turbines and pumps are handled as separate units (i.e. separate rows in the binary decision variable matrix). Simultaneous operating of turbines and pumps of a storage power station (i.e. both decision variables Ut,,= 1) must be prevented by means of an interrogate. In other words, the coding scheme takes care of the minimum upldown-time and the turbinelpump operating constraints directly, therefore, they do not have to be considered in further algorithm. For genetic operations the N x H matrix (see in Fig.3) is converted into a 1 x H*N matrix which represents a coded chromosome.

after decoding, the binary string of unit i in Fig.3 is translated back to the actual commitment schedule given in FigS.

Timesbp

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 I].,, 46 47 H ...

woff-slate i 1 I n n o n n n n i...

...I

Fig.5. Actual Commitment Schedule of Unit i

The decoded, actual commitment schedules of the units are used to perform the economic dispatch and to calculate the fitness values (see in Fig.2).

2. Penalty Functions
Since the penalty functions and their parameters affect the performance of the algorithm, the careful selection and grading of the parameters is important. Well chosen, graded penalties which differentiate the relative performance of all chromosomes should provide a better performance than harsh penalty functions. The penalty values are chosen sufficiently large to discourage the selection of solutions with violated constraints.
C. Econoniic Dispatch

The economic dispatch is a computational intensive part, therefore, to save execution time the economic dispatch is only performed if the given unit commitment schedule is able to meet the load balance, energy, and begidend level constraints. The economic dispatch problem can he defined as finding the optimal combination of power outputs that minimizes the total operating cost while satisfying the given constraints. The sum of the power outputs must equal the total load demand and the power output of an individual unit must he within its respective operating limits. Additionally, primary constraint groups, i.e. fuel consumption constraints and storage reservoir constraints, and secondary constraint groups, i.e. energy constraints, must he met. A constraint group covers a certain time period.

D. Calcidation of the Fitness Value

If the schedule is able to meet the load balance, energy, and begidend level constraints, the fitness value is obtained by summing the operating cost, the start costs and penalty costs due the violation of the spinning reserve and minimudmaximum level constraints. Otherwise, the fitness Obtained the Penalty costS due the value

Unit 1

ui 2 nt
Fig. 4. Proposed Coded Chromosome

UnitN

After processingby the GA the hinary strings can be easily decoded back to the actual decision variables. For instance,

1465

violation of load balance, energy, and begidend level constraints.

C. Recombination (Crossover)

E. Genetic Operations
The genetic algorithm starts with a population, which is created by random. A population consists of coded chromosomes. After evaluating the fitness value of the chromosomes by the HTC-Object, the GA performs the genetic operations, i.e. selection, elitism, recombination (crossover), and mutation, to evolve the population (see in Fig.l). IV. GENETIC ALGORITHMS

Recombination is the primary genetic operator which promotes the exploration of new regions in the search space [5]. For a pair of parents selected from the population the recombination operation divides two strings of hits into segments by setting a crossover point at random, i.e. Single Point Crossover. The segments of bits from the parents behind the crossover point are exchanged with each other to generate their offspring. The idea of this operation is to recombine building blocks (schemes) on different strings.

D. Mutation
Mutation is a secondary operator and prevents the prematurc stopping of the algorithm in a local solution point [SI. Mutation is an occasional (according to a given small propability, e.g. 0.001 - 0.003, called the mutation rate) random alteration of the value of a chromosome position. In the binary coding, this means changing a 1 to a 0 and visa versa. It is the insurance policy against premature loss of important notions.

A. Basic Function A genetic algorithm is a global search technique based on principles inspired from the genetic and evolution mechanisms observed in natural systems and populations of living beings i.e. natural selection, mutation, and recombination [ 5 ] . A population consisting of chromosomes is created by random. A chromosome is a solution to the problem and consists of a number of bits. In the next step each chromosome is evaluated and given a certain fitness value. The fitness value represents the feasibility and the optimality of a given chromosome. The chromosome and the corresponding fitness value are referred to an individual. Depending on their fitness value, a certain percentage of the population is selected and deleted. The surviving individuals are recombined and mutated. After the population has been evaluated, the selection process starts again.

V.

SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A . Power System Model

The calculated power system consists of eight thermal generation units, nine import-contracts, one export-contract and one storage power station. The data of the power system model is very cxtensive, therefore, it is not published in this paper. The power system has to cover the load curve in F i g 6

B. Selection
Selection is an operation by which individuals within the population are picked out to generate offspring via recombination and mutation operations. The criterion to choose the individuals is based on their fitness value. Better individuals, i.e. with a higher fitness, are more probably selected than others. The selection parameter, survival rate, determines the number of individuals which are chosen for reproduction. Several different selection methods, e.g. Ranking, Tournament, Proportional, ..., are used (see [SI for detailed descriptions). Elitism forces the best individual of the cnrrent population to be member of the next generation 161. However, the elitism operation may put too much pressure on the elite and lead to premature convergence or converge to a non-optimal point, therefore, an elite strategy that mutates the elite structures is adopted.

'

.
Time
Pig. 6 , Load Curve

D.

Variation of GA-Parameters

For the unit commitment problem, thc influences of respective control parameters on the performance of the GA

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were examined further. Using the load curve in Fig.6 and the control parameters listed below as the basis, one parameter at a time is changed (while keeping the other ones unchanged) and the performance of the GA is evaluated accordingly. The parameters which are varied include the population size, the selection method, the survival rate, and the mutation rate. Following parameters are chosen as basis: Selection method: Ranking, Survival rate = 0.6 Elitism Recombination method: Single Point Crossover Mutation method: Constant Mutation rate = 0.001 Number of Individuals = 100

2.

Variation o Survival Rate f

Rate 0.5

-Rate

0.9

1. Variation o Population Size f

25

45

65

85

105

125

145

Number of Generatlons
Fig. 8. Graph of Cost Minimizntion with different Survival Rates

- hdiv. - hdlv. .- ..... 20 hdiv. 400 100

F 5 1.Et06

Selection), the more quickly new individuals are introduced I into the population. That leads to a faster rate of convergence. But the possibility of moving towards a local minimum is increased since better solutions are discarded faster than selection can produce improvements. If the survival rate is too high, evolution would be retarded because of too much generation overlap and the search may stagnate because of the lower exploration rate.
6000 8000

As illustrated in Fig.8, the lower the survival rate( see 1V.B

Q
0

8 I

l.Et07
\
I..

- .. ....-.... . -. .
2000 4000

1.Et06
0

10000

Number of Evaluations

3.

Variation o Mutation Rate f

-Rate
Fig. 7. Graph of Cost Minimization Process with different Population Sizes

0.01

Rate 0.001
I

The effects of the population size on the performance of the GA are described schematically in Fig.7 where the graph of cost minimization is given in terms of the number of evaluations. Experiments reveal that a large population requires more evaluations per generation resulting in a relatively slow rate of convergence, however, a small population would retain less variation of the individuals and results in a premature stopping of the GA. Obviously, for the unit commitment problem studied in this paper, a population size of 100 is most effective.

lE+OQ I

r" d 1 1EtO8
0

I
0

1E+07

e:
0
10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Number Of Generations
Fig. 9. Graph of Cost Minimization with different Mutntion Rates

1467 L R a t e 0.001

Rate 0,0001

every member of the population, therefore, the diversity in the population is increased. But considering the faster rate of convergence of the minimization process, the ranking method is more effective.
C. Results

30

50

70

90

110

130

150

Number of Generatlons
Fig. IO.Graph of Cost Minimization with different Mutation Rates

Fig.9 and Fig.10 show the influences of different mutation rates on the cost minimization process. As illustrated in Fig.9, a high level of mutation yields a nearly random search and hardly converges towards an optimal solution. On the contrary, a low level of mutation can not serve to diversify the population and thus to prevent premature stopping of the GA (shown in Fig. 10). The experimental results suggcst that the mutation rate of 0.001 appears to he appropriate for the case studied. 4. Variation o Selection Method f

Comparing with the result of a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) solution technique [lo], the obtained result represents a highly optimal solution to the problem. The computation time, using a SUN@ SPARC station 10, is between 8 and 10 minutes. It needs about 2 to 5 minutes more than the MILP solution technique. Considering larger systems it can he said that the computation time increases in a quadratic way with the number of units to be committed.

VI.

CONCLUSIONS

0
I -

1E+08

8
0 10 20 30 40 50
60 70 80 90 100

Simulation results reveal that optimal tuning of GAparametcrs to guarantee fast convergence and a highly optimal solution is difficult and depends on the studied unit commitment problem. Additionally, the GA is a random search technique whereby, however, the search is guided by the objective function (e.g. operating cost function). The objective of this paper was to check the applicability of a genetic algorithm to solve the unit commitment problem of a real scaled hydro-thermal power system. Finally it can be said that the proposed solution approach represents an interesting and promising method. The simulation results reveal that the features of easy implementation, convergence in an acceptable time, and highly optimal solution in solving the unit commitment problem can be achieved. The studied system contains only a single storage power station. Further research will he done on more complex hydro system, considering hydraulic coupling of hydro stations.

Number of Generatlons
Fig. 11. Grnph o f Cost Minimization with different Selection Methods

VII. REFERENCES
Pai-Chuan Yang, Hong-Tzer Yang, Ching-Lien Huang, Solving the unit commitment problem with a genetic algorithm through a constraint satisfaction technique, Electric Power Systems Research, 37 (1996) pp.55 65 S.O. Orero, M.R. Irving, A genetic algorithm for generator scheduling in power systems, Elecfrical Power & EnergvSystems, Vo1.18 No.1 (1996) pp.19 26
~

The selection operations Ranking and Tournament ( see [5] for detailed descriptions) determine the mating pool by choosing individuals From the population in proportion to their fitness. As shown in Fig.11, the selection method ranking leads to a faster rate of convergence. But it promotes the domination of fit individuals and thus it provides some form of local search mechanism. The probabilistic nature of tournament method gives a chance of reproduction to the

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[31

Gerald B. Sheble, Timothy T. Maifeld, Unit commitment by genetic algorithm and expert system, Electric Power Systems Research, 30 (1994) pp.115 121 S.A. Kazarlis, A.G. Barkirtzis, V. Petridis, A genetic algorithm solution to the unit commitment problem, IEEE Transactions on Power @stems, Vol. 11 No. 1 (1996) pp.83 - 90 f Lawrence Davis, Handbook o Genetic Algorithms, International Thomson Computer Press, London David B. Fogel, Evolufionary Computation, IEEE Press, New York, 1995 Thomas BLck, Evolutionary Algorithms in Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press, 1996 Zbigniew Michalewicz Genetic Algorithms+Data Structures =Evolution Programs, Springer Publishing House, Berlin, 1992 G.L.Nemhauser, A.H.G.Rinnooykan, M.J. Todd, Opfimizafion Vol.1, North Holland Press, Amsterdam, 1989 Klaus Neumann, Martin Morlock, Operalions Research, Carl Hanser Publishing House, Munich (1993) Allen J. Wood, Bruce F. Wollenberg, Power Generation, Operation, and Control, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1984 Josef Bogensberger, Ein Beitrag zur Erstellung gemischt-ganzzahliger Modelle f i r die Jahreseinsatzopfimierung in einem hydro-thermischen Krafherkssystem, Ph.D. Thesis, Technical University Graz

[131 ECANSE Release 1.5, User Manual for Windows NT,

SIEMENS AG Austria, 1993 - 1996 VIII. BIOGRAPHIES

Andreas Rudolf, was born in Abtenau, Austria, in October 1970. He received the Dipl. Eng. Degree from the Department of Electric Power Systems at the Technical University Graz, Austria, in 1997. He has done his diploma thesis at SIEMENS AG Austria. In October 1997 he started his Ph.D. at Department of Electric Power Systems at the Technical University Vienna, Austria. Since November 1997 he has been working in the fields of operation research at SIEMENS, Program and System Engineering, Power Systems Control, in Vienna. He is currently researching in the field of unit commitment. Ralf Bayrleithner, was born in Vienna, Austria in June 1966. He received his Dipl. Eng. Degree from the Technical University Vienna in 1990. He was continuing his research work at the Department of Flexible Automation at the Technical University Vienna in the field of robotics. In February 1993 he went to the Mechanical Engineering Laboratories MITI, Tsukuba, Japan where he was working in the field of cybernetics (distributed computation, optimized control algorithm, human mechanics). Since August 1994 he has been working in the field of Operation Research at SIEMENS, Program and System Engineering, Power Systems Control, in Vienna, He is currently researching in the field of unit commitment, energy trading and leading a project team.
~