A hybrid optimization technique for solving economic dispatch problem

Abstract

Economic dispatch (ED) is one the main power system problems solved during operational planning phase. It is solved by power system engineers with the objective to find the best setting of dispatchable generating units output so that the total production cost is cheap and at the same time abiding the system constraints. For the past ten years, researchers and engineers have been focusing on hybrid optimization techniques to solve ED problems. The strength of each hybridized technique is combined to form an improved optimization technique. Most of the hybrid techniques are combination of two or more meta-heuristic techniques. This paper proposed a new hybrid technique termed as immune evolutionary programming (IEP) to solve economic dispatch problem. The technique is a combination of two population based optimization techniques which are artificial immune system (AIS) and evolutionary programming (EP). In order to study the effectiveness of the proposed technique, the results produced have been compared with the results produced using AIS and EP techniques. It is found that IEP succeeded to give the lowest total production cost compared to the other two techniques. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.