Economic Load Dispatch in Power System Networks Using Optimization Techniques

Practical economic dispatch (ED) problems have highly non-linear objective function with rigid equality and inequality constraints. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is applied to allot the active power among the generating stations satisfying the system constraints and minimizing the cost of power generated. The viability of the method is analyzed for its accuracy and rate of convergence. The economic load dispatch problem is solved for two, three and six-unit system using PSO and conventional method for both cases of neglecting and including transmission losses. The results of PSO method were compared with conventional method and were found to be superior. The conventional optimization methods are unable to solve such problems due to local optimum solution convergence. The optimization technique is constantly evolving to provide better and faster results.