Deterministic and probabilistic techniques may be used to determine the required level of reserve capacity to be maintained by a system. Deterministic approaches do not specifically recognize the probability of component failures in the assessment of spinning reserve. Probabilistic techniques can be used to take into account the random outages of system components and other stochastic component behavior. Deterministic criteria are easier for system planners and operators to understand and apply than probabilistic approaches. A practical way to overcome these difficulties is to combine probabilistic indices with deterministic criteria to reflect the degree of power system well-being. In conventional well-being analysis approaches, according to priority list, units should be committed to satisfy the specified criteria. In this study, concepts of well-being analysis are incorporated in dynamic programming to obtain the optimum amount of capacity reserve. In a practical power system, the reserve can not be utilized instantaneously and is restricted by the ramp rate characteristics of the committed generating units. Therefore, assigned amount of spinning reserve must be available within a given period to provide protection in the event of a sudden loss of generating capacity or any other power system disturbance. An approach is developed in this work to determine the required number of units and optimal load dispatch of committed units based on the unit commitment and response criteria using a dynamic programming method. The effects on the response well-being of rapid start units are also illustrated. Another important factor in the assessment of spinning reserve is the limitation of transmission line capacity. This work proposes a linear programming method for economic dispatch of power generation considering spinning reserve and transmission line capacity.