Fully and partially distributed Quantum Generalized Benders Decomposition for Unit Commitment Problems

A series of hybrid quantum-classical generalized Benders decomposition (GBD) algorithms are proposed to address unit commitment (UC) problems under centralized, distributed, and partially distributed frameworks. In the centralized approach, the quantum GBD transforms the master problem (MP) into a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization form suitable for quantum computing. For distributed systems, the distributed consensus quantum GBD employs an average consensus strategy to reformulate subproblems into local subproblems. By leveraging the dual information, local cutting planes are constructed to decompose the MP into local master problems (LMPs). This approach reduces the qubit overhead and addresses the partitioning requirements. The consensus-inspired quantum GBD (CIQGBD) and its partially distributed variant, D-CIQGBD are proposed based on optimizing the allocation of relaxation variables directly, the algorithms construct more rational cutting planes, thereby enhancing the minimum eigenenergy gap of the system Hamiltonian during quantum annealing and improving the computational efficiency. Extensive experiments under various UC scenarios validate the performance of the above-mentioned hybrid algorithms. Compared to the classical solver Gurobi, D-CIQGBD demonstrates a speed advantage in solving the security-constrained UC problem on the IEEE-RTS 24-bus system. These results provide new perspectives on leveraging quantum computing for the distributed optimization of power systems.