Alexander Martin

Using Piecewise Linear Functions for Solving MINLP s

In this chapter we want to demonstrate that in certain cases general mixed integer nonlinear programs (MINLPs) can be solved by just applying purely techniques from the mixed integer linear world. The way to achieve this is to approximate the nonlinearities by piecewise linear functions. The advantage of applying mixed integer lin- ear techniques are that these methods are nowadays very mature, that is, they are fast, robust, and are able to solve problems with up to millions of variables. In addition, these methods have the potential of finding globally optimal solutions or at least to provide solution guarantees. On the other hand, one tends to say at this point “If you have a hammer, everything is a nail.”[15], because one tries to reformulate or to approximate an ac- tual nonlinear problem until one obtains a model that is tractable by the methods one is common with. Besides the fact that this is a very typical approach in mathematics the question stays whether this is a reasonable approach for the solution of MINLPs or whether the nature of the nonlin- earities inherent to the problem gets lost and the solutions obtained from the mixed integer linear problem have no meaning for the MINLP. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss this question. We will see that the truth lies somewhere in between and that there are problems where this is indeed a reasonable way to go and others where it is not.

Validation of nominations in gas network optimization: models, methods, and solutions

In this article, we investigate methods to solve a fundamental task in gas transportation, namely the validation of nomination problem: given a gas transmission network consisting of passive pipelines and active, controllable elements and given an amount of gas at every entry and exit point of the network, find operational settings for all active elements such that there exists a network state meeting all physical, technical, and legal constraints. We describe a two-stage approach to solve the resulting complex and numerically difficult nonconvex mixedinteger nonlinear feasibility problem. The first phase consists of four distinct algorithms applying mixedinteger linear, mixedinteger nonlinear, nonlinear, and methods for complementarity constraints to compute possible settings for the discrete decisions. The second phase employs a precise continuous nonlinear programming model of the gas network. Using this setup, we are able to compute high-quality solutions to real-world industrial instances that are significantly larger than networks that have appeared in the mathematical programming literature before.

Combination of Nonlinear and Linear Optimization of Transient Gas Networks

In this paper, we study the problem of technical transient gas network optimization, which can be considered a minimum cost flow problem with a nonlinear objective function and additional nonlinear constraints on the network arcs. Applying an implicit box scheme to the isothermal Euler equation, we derive a mixed-integer nonlinear program. This is solved by means of a combination of (i) a novel mixed-integer linear programming approach based on piecewise linearization and (ii) a classical sequential quadratic program applied for given combinatorial constraints. Numerical experiments show that better approximations to the optimal control problem can be obtained by using solutions of the sequential quadratic programming algorithm to improve the mixed-integer linear program. Moreover, iteratively applying these two techniques improves the results even further.

Strict linear prices in non-convex European day-ahead electricity markets

The European power grid can be divided into several market areas where the price of electricity is determined in a day-ahead auction. Market participants can provide continuous hourly bid curves and combinatorial bids with associated quantities given the prices. The goal of our auction is to maximize the economic surplus of all participants subject to quantity constraints and price constraints. The price constraints ensure that no one incurs a loss. Only traders who submitted a combinatorial bid might miss a not-realized profit. The resulting problem is a large-scale mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) and binary variables that cannot be solved efficiently by standard solvers. We present an exact algorithm and a fast heuristic for this type of problem. Both algorithms decompose the MPEC into a master problem (a mixed-integer quadratic program) and pricing subproblems (linear programs). The modelling technique and the algorithms are applicable to a wide variety of combinatorial auctions that are based on mixed-integer programs.

Transmission and generation investment in electricity markets: The effects of market splitting and network fee regimes

We propose an equilibrium model that allows to analyze the long-run impact of the electricity market design on transmission line expansion by the regulator and investment in generation capacity by private firms in liberalized electricity markets. The model incorporates investment decisions of the transmission system operator and private firms in expectation of an energy-only market and cost-based redispatch. In different specifications we consider the cases of one vs. multiple price zones (market splitting) and analyze different approaches to recover network cost—in particular lump sum, generation capacity based, and energy based fees. In order to compare the outcomes of our multilevel market model with a first best benchmark, we also solve the corresponding integrated planner problem. Using two test networks we illustrate that energy-only markets can lead to suboptimal locational decisions for generation capacity and thus imply excessive network expansion. Market splitting heals these problems only partially. These results are valid for all considered types of network tariffs, although investment slightly differs across those regimes.

Mixed integer linear models for the optimization of dynamical transport networks

We introduce a mixed integer linear modeling approach for the optimization of dynamic transport networks based on the piecewise linearization of nonlinear constraints and we show how to apply this method by two examples, transient gas and water supply network optimization. We state the mixed integer linear programs for both cases and provide numerical evidence for their suitability.

Progress in presolving for mixed integer programming

This paper describes three presolving techniques for solving mixed integer programming problems (MIPs) that were implemented in the academic MIP solver SCIP. The task of presolving is to reduce the problem size and strengthen the formulation, mainly by eliminating redundant information and exploiting problem structures. The first method fixes continuous singleton columns and extends results known from duality fixing. The second analyzes and exploits pairwise dominance relations between variables, whereas the third detects isolated subproblems and solves them independently. The performance of the presented techniques is demonstrated on two MIP test sets. One contains all benchmark instances from the last three MIPLIB versions, while the other consists of real-world supply chain management problems. The computational results show that the combination of all three presolving techniques almost halves the solving time for the considered supply chain management problems. For the MIPLIB instances we obtain a speedup of 20xa0% on affected instances while not degrading the performance on the remaining problems.

LP and SDP branch-and-cut algorithms for the minimum graph bisection problem: a computational comparison

While semidefinite relaxations are known to deliver good approximations for combinatorial optimization problems like graph bisection, their practical scope is mostly associated with small dense instances. For large sparse instances, cutting plane techniques are considered the method of choice. These are also applicable for semidefinite relaxations via the spectral bundle method, which allows to exploit structural properties like sparsity. In order to evaluate the relative strengths of linear and semidefinite approaches for large sparse instances, we set up a common branch-and-cut framework for linear and semidefinite relaxations of the minimum graph bisection problem. It incorporates separation algorithms for valid inequalities of the bisection cut polytope described in a recent study by the authors. While the problem specific cuts help to strengthen the linear relaxation significantly, the semidefinite bound profits much more from separating the cycle inequalities of the cut polytope on a slightly enlarged support. Extensive numerical experiments show that this semidefinite branch-and-cut approach without problem specific cuts is a superior choice to the classical simplex approach exploiting bisection specific inequalities on a clear majority of our large sparse test instances from VLSI design and numerical optimization.

Mixed Integer Optimization of Water Supply Networks

We introduce a mixed integer linear modeling approach for the optimization of dynamic water supply networks based on the piecewise linearization of nonlinear constraints. One advantage of applying mixed integer linear techniques is that these methods are nowadays very mature, that is, they are fast, robust, and are able to solve problems with up to a huge number of variables. The other major point is that these methods have the potential of finding globally optimal solutions or at least to provide guarantees of the solution quality. We demonstrate the applicability of our approach on examples networks.

Progress in Academic Computational Integer Programming

This paper discusses issues related to the progress in computational integer programming. The first part deals with the question to what extent computational experiments can be reproduced at all. Afterward the performance measurement of solvers and their comparison are investigated. Then academic progress in solving mixed-integer programming at the examples of the solver SIP and its successor SCIP is demonstrated. All arguments are supported by computational results. Finally, we discuss the pros and cons of developing academic software for solving mixed-integer programs.