A hybrid optimization framework for the General Continuous Energy-Constrained Scheduling Problem

Abstract: We present a hybrid optimization framework for a class of problems, formalized as a generalization of the Continuous Energy-Con-strained Scheduling Problem (CECSP), introduced by Nattaf et al. (2014). This class is obtained from challenges concerning demand response in energy networks. Our framework extends a previously developed approach. A set of jobs has to be processed on a continuous, shared resource. Consequently, a schedule for a job does not only contain a start and completion time, but also a resource consumption profile, where we have to respect lower and upper bounds on resource consumption during processing. In this work, we develop a hybrid approach for the case where the objective is a step-wise increasing function of completion time, using local search, linear programming and O(n) lower bounds. We exploit that the costs are known in the local search and use bounds to assess feasibility more efficiently than by LP. We compare its performance to a mixed-integer linear program. After that, we extend this to a hybrid optimization framework for the General CECSP. This uses an event-based model, and applies a decomposition in two parts: 1) determining the order of events and 2) finding the event times, and hence the start and completion times of jobs, together with the resource consumption profiles. We argue the broad applicability of this framework.