Lower bound strategies in combinatorial non-linear programming. A case study: energy generators maintenance and operation scheduling

The Generator Maintenance and Operation Scheduling problem is presented as large-scale mixed integer non-linear programming case. Several relaxations of the integrality condition on the variables are discussed. The optimal solution of the model based on these relaxations is viewed as the lower bound of the optimal solution in the original problem. A continuous constrained non-linear programming algorithm is used in the optimization of the relaxed formulation. Computational experience on a variety of real-life problems is provided