This paper presents an approach to preventive maintenance scheduling of power plants for electric systems. The problem under study is an optimization problem and has been formulated with a cost-based criterion. The main aim is to know which power plants must stop their operation of elec-tricity production for periodic inspection over a time horizon. The management of this problem has a considerable impact on power system performance because an unexpected failure in a power plant may cause a general breakdown in an electric system. The main consequence would be that the elec-tric demand could be unsatisfied. The global electric system modeled comprises the most important types of power plants: thermal, hydroelectric, nuclear, and wind power plants. A realistic application example is included.
