Benchmarking Quantum Optimisation for New Zealand's Hydrothermal Unit Commitment
A research project comparing hybrid quantum-classical optimisation (D-Wave annealing + gate-based QAOA) against exact classical solutions for NZ's electricity dispatch problem, using real publicly available market data from the Electricity Authority.
Every published quantum UC paper uses synthetic IEEE test systems. Nobody has built quantum-compatible benchmark instances from a real national electricity market — let alone a hydro-dominated one with cascading reservoir constraints. NZ's small grid (~30-50 dispatchable units) means we can solve the problem exactly with classical solvers, giving verified ground-truth to benchmark quantum approaches against.
We are not claiming quantum advantage. We are mapping the terrain.
🚧 Phase 1: Classical Baseline
pip install numpy pandas scipy matplotlib gurobipy dwave-ocean-sdk qiskit qiskit-aerMIT