AC network-constrained unit commitment via conic relaxation and convex programming

•Propose a solution approach for the AC network-constrained unit commitment problem.•The proposed approach relies on convex (continuous and mixed-integer) programming.•An active set strategy is used to speed up the solution time of the proposed approach.•An AC feasible solution is recovered using a sequence of convex optimization problems.•Demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach using the IEEE 24-bus test system and an Illinois 200-bus system.