Evolutionary algorithm solution for economic dispatch problems

Abstract

A modified firefly algorithm (FA) was presented in this paper for finding a solution to the economic dispatch (ED) problem. ED is considered a difficult topic in the field of power systems due to the complexity of calculating the optimal generation schedule that will satisfy the demand for electric power at the lowest fuel costs while satisfying all the other constraints. Furthermore, the ED problems are associated with objective functions that have both quality and inequality constraints; these include the practical operation constraints of the generators (such as the forbidden working areas, nonlinear limits, and generation limits) that makes the calculation of the global optimal solutions of ED a difficult task. The proposed approach in this study was evaluated in the IEEE 30-Bus test-bed; the evaluation showed that the proposed FA-based approach performed optimally in comparison with the performance of the other existing optimizers, such as the traditional FA and particle swarm optimization. The results show the high performance of the modified firefly algorithm compared to the other methods.