An enhanced differential evolution algorithm application to economic dispatch with valve-point effects and system losses considerations

Abstract

This paper presents an enhanced differential evolution algorithm (EnDEA) to solve economic dispatch (ED) problem of generating units considering valve-point effects and system losses. The aim of ED problem is to achieve optimal generation scheduling of power plants, which has minimum total production cost associated with technical and economical constraints. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed method is initially demonstrated via the analysis of 10-unit test system considering valve-point loading and system losses constraints. Furthermore, multiple fuels of thermal power plant are included and investigated in this ED problem. A detailed comparative study between a conventional differential evolution algorithm (CDEA) and the proposed EnDEA method is presented. Regarding the experimental results, the proposed technique obtained solutions with good accuracy, stable convergence characteristics, and satisfactory calculation time. © 2015 IEEE.