MOST - MATPOWER Optimal Scheduling Tool

The MATPOWER Optimal Scheduling Tool (MOST) is framework for solving generalized steady-state electric power scheduling problems.

MOST can be used to solve problems as simple as a deterministic, single period economic dispatch problem with no transmission constraints or as complex as a stochastic, security-constrained, combined unit-commitment and multiperiod optimal power flow problem with locational contingency and load-following reserves, ramping costs and constraints, deferrable demands, lossy storage resources and uncertain renewable generation.

While the problem formulation is general and incorporates a full nonlinear AC network model, the current implementation is limited to DC power flow modeling of the network. Some work has been done on an AC implementation, but it is not yet ready for release.

The primary developers of MOST are Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez and Ray D. Zimmerman, with significant contributions from Daniel Munoz-Alvarez and Alberto J. Lamadrid. It is built on top of MATPOWER, a package of MATLAB/Octave M-files for solving power flow and optimal power flow problems.

System Requirements

This version of MOST requires: * MATPOWER version 8.x or later, (see MATPOWER system requirements for details of required versions of MATLAB or GNU Octave) * (highly recommended) A high-performance LP/MILP, QP/MIQP solver, such as Gurobi, CPLEX, MOSEK, MATLAB's Optimization Toolbox, or GLPK (included with Octave).

Installation

The preferred method of installation is simply to install MATPOWER, which is a prerequisite for MOST and also includes its own copy of MOST.

If you have followed the directions for installing MATPOWER found in the MATPOWER User's Manual, then MOST should already be installed and the appropriate paths added to your MATLAB/Octave path.

To run the test suite and verify that MOST is properly installed and functioning, at the MATLAB/Octave prompt, type test_most. The result should resemble the following, possibly including extra tests, depending on the availablility of optional packages: ```

testmost tmost3b110........ok tmost3b310........ok tmost30b110.......ok tmost30b310.......ok tmostfixedres.......ok tmost30b110uc....ok tmostmpopf...........ok tmostuc..............ok (345 of 414 skipped) tmostsuc.............ok (185 of 222 skipped) tmosttlmp............ok tmostw_ds............ok All tests successful (360 passed, 530 skipped of 890) Elapsed time 15.92 seconds. ```

If, for some reason, you prefer to install your own copy of MOST directly from the MOST GitHub repository, simply clone the repository to the location of your choice, where we use <MOST> to denote the path the resulting most directory. Then add the following directories to your MATLAB or Octave path: * <MOST>/lib * <MOST>/lib/t * <MOST>/examples

It is important that they appear before MATPOWER in your path if you want to use this version of MOST, rather than the one included with MATPOWER.

Documentation

There are two primary sources of documentation for MOST. The first is the MOST User's Manual, which gives an overview of the capabilities and structure of MOST and describes the problem formulation. It can be found in your MATPOWER distribution at <MATPOWER>/most/docs/MOST-manual.pdf and the latest version is always available at: https://github.com/MATPOWER/most/blob/master/docs/MOST-manual.pdf.

And second is the built-in help command. As with the built-in functions and toolbox routines in MATLAB and Octave, you can type help followed by the name of a command or M-file to get help on that particular function. All of the M-files in MOST have such documentation and this should be considered the main reference for the calling options for each function.

Publications

1. R. D. Zimmerman, C. E. Murillo-Sanchez, and R. J. Thomas, "MATPOWER: Steady-State Operations, Planning and Analysis Tools for Power Systems Research and Education," Power Systems, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 12–19, Feb. 2011.
   doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2010.2051168.

2. C. E. Murillo-Sanchez, R. D. Zimmerman, C. L. Anderson, and R. J. Thomas, "Secure Planning and Operations of Systems with Stochastic Sources, Energy Storage and Active Demand," Smart Grid, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 2220–2229, Dec. 2013.
   doi: 10.1109/TSG.2013.2281001.

3. A. J. Lamadrid, D. Munoz-Alvarez, C. E. Murillo-Sanchez, R. D. Zimmerman, H. D. Shin and R. J. Thomas, "Using the MATPOWER Optimal Scheduling Tool to Test Power System Operation Methodologies Under Uncertainty," Sustainable Energy, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 1280-1289, July 2019.
   doi: 10.1109/TSTE.2018.2865454.

Citing MOST

We request that publications derived from the use of the MATPOWER Optimal Scheduling Tool (MOST) explicitly acknowledge that fact by citing both the 2011 MATPOWER paper and the 2013 MOST paper.

R. D. Zimmerman, C. E. Murillo-Sanchez, and R. J. Thomas, "MATPOWER: Steady-State Operations, Planning and Analysis Tools for Power Systems Research and Education," Power Systems, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 12-19, Feb. 2011.
doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2010.2051168

C. E. Murillo-Sanchez, R. D. Zimmerman, C. L. Anderson, and R. J. Thomas, "Secure Planning and Operations of Systems with Stochastic Sources, Energy Storage and Active Demand," Smart Grid, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 2220-2229, Dec. 2013.
doi: 10.1109/TSG.2013.2281001

The MATPOWER Optimal Scheduling Tool (MOST) User's Manual should also be cited explicitly in work that refers to or is derived from its content. The citation and DOI can be version-specific or general, as appropriate. For version 1.3.1, use:

R. D. Zimmerman, C. E. Murillo-Sanchez. MATPOWER Optimal Scheduling Tool (MOST) User's Manual, Version 1.3.1. 2025. [Online]. Available: https://matpower.org/docs/MOST-manual-1.3.1.pdf
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.15871471

For a version non-specific citation, use the following citation and DOI, with <YEAR> replaced by the year of the most recent release:

R. D. Zimmerman, C. E. Murillo-Sanchez. MATPOWER Optimal Scheduling Tool (MOST) User's Manual. <YEAR>. [Online]. Available: https://matpower.org/docs/MOST-manual.pdf
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3236531

A list of versions of the User's Manual with release dates and version-specific DOI's can be found via the general DOI at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3236531.

Contributing

Please see our contributing guidelines for details on how to contribute to the project or report issues.

License

MOST is distributed under the 3-clause BSD license.