A new honey bee mating optimization algorithm for non-smooth economic dispatch

The non-storage characteristics of electricity and the increasing fuel costs worldwide call for the need to operate the systems more economically. Economic dispatch (ED) is one of the most important optimization problems in power systems. ED has the objective of dividing the power demand among the online generators economically while satisfying various constraints. The importance of economic dispatch is to get maximum usable power using minimum resources. To solve the static ED problem, honey bee mating algorithm (HBMO) can be used. The basic disadvantage of the original HBMO algorithm is the fact that it may miss the optimum and provide a near optimum solution in a limited runtime period. In order to avoid this shortcoming, we propose a new method that improves the mating process of HBMO and also, combines the improved HBMO with a Chaotic Local Search (CLS) called Chaotic Improved Honey Bee Mating Optimization (CIHBMO). The proposed algorithm is used to solve ED problems taking into account the nonlinear generator characteristics such as prohibited operation zones, multi-fuel and valve-point loading effects. The CIHBMO algorithm is tested on three test systems and compared with other methods in the literature. Results have shown that the proposed method is efficient and fast for ED problems with non-smooth and non-continuous fuel cost functions. Moreover, the optimal power dispatch obtained by the algorithm is superior to previous reported results.     

Solution to economic dispatch problem with valve-point loading effect by using catfish PSO algorithm

This paper proposes application of a catfish particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to economic dispatch (ED) problems. The ED problems considered in this paper include valve-point loading effect, power balance constraints, and generator limits. The conventional PSO and catfish PSO algorithms are applied to three different test systems and the solutions obtained are compared with each other and with those reported in literature. The comparison of solutions shows that catfish PSO outperforms the conventional PSO and other methods in terms of solution quality though there is a slight increase in computational time.     

Application of the invasive weed optimization algorithm to economic dispatch problems

In this paper the invasive weed optimization algorithm has been applied to a variety of economic dispatch (ED) problems. The ED problem is concerned with minimizing the fuel cost by optimally loading the electrical generators which are committed to supply a given demand. Some involve prohibited operating zones, transmission losses and valve point loading. In general, they are non-linear non-convex optimization problems which cannot be directly solved by conventional methods. In this work the invasive weed algorithm, a meta-heuristic method inspired by the proliferation of weeds, has been applied to four numerical examples and has resulted in promising solutions compared to published results.     

Hybrid artificial bee colony algorithm for parameter estimation of proton exchange membrane fuel cell

The accurate electrochemical model plays an important role in design and analysis of hydrogen fuel cell systems. For the purpose of estimating parameters of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) model, and inspired by the foraging behavior of bacteria and bees, a hybrid artificial bee colony (HABC) algorithm is proposed. The HABC uses an improved solution search equation that mimics the chemotactic effect of bacteria to enhance the local search ability. To avoid premature convergence and improve search accuracy, the adaptive Boltzmann selection scheme is adopted, which adjusts selective probabilities in different stages. Performance testing has been conducted on some typical benchmark functions. The results demonstrate that the HABC outperforms other methods (BIPOA, PSOPS and two improved GAs) in both convergence speed and accuracy. The proposed approach is applied to estimate the PEMFC model parameters and the satisfactory model predictive curves are obtained. More experimental results in different search ranges and validate strategies indicate that HABC is an efficient technique for the parameter estimation problem of PEMFC.     

Combined heat and power economic dispatch problem using the invasive weed optimization algorithm

Cogeneration units which produce both heat and electric power are found in many process industries. These industries also consume heat directly in addition to electricity. The cogeneration units operate only within a feasible zone. Each point within the feasible zone consists of a specific value of heat and electric power. These units are used along with other units which produce either heat or power exclusively. Hence the economic dispatch problem for these plants optimizing the fuel cost is quite complex and several classical and meta-heuristic algorithms have been proposed earlier. This paper applies the invasive weed optimization algorithm which is inspired by the ecological process of weed colonization and distribution. The results obtained have been compared with those obtained by other methods earlier and showed a marked improvement over earlier ones.     

Electric load forecasting by seasonal recurrent SVR (support vector regression) with chaotic artificial bee colony algorithm

Support vector regression (SVR), with hybrid chaotic sequence and evolutionary algorithms to determine suitable values of its three parameters, not only can effectively avoid converging prematurely (i.e., trapping into a local optimum), but also reveals its superior forecasting performance. Electric load sometimes demonstrates a seasonal (cyclic) tendency due to economic activities or climate cyclic nature. The applications of SVR models to deal with seasonal (cyclic) electric load forecasting have not been widely explored. In addition, the concept of recurrent neural networks (RNNs), focused on using past information to capture detailed information, is helpful to be combined into an SVR model. This investigation presents an electric load forecasting model which combines the seasonal recurrent support vector regression model with chaotic artificial bee colony algorithm (namely SRSVRCABC) to improve the forecasting performance. The proposed SRSVRCABC employs the chaotic behavior of honey bees which is with better performance in function optimization to overcome premature local optimum. A numerical example from an existed reference is used to elucidate the forecasting performance of the proposed SRSVRCABC model. The forecasting results indicate that the proposed model yields more accurate forecasting results than ARIMA and TF-ε-SVR-SA models. Therefore, the SRSVRCABC model is a promising alternative for electric load forecasting.     

A new fuzzy adaptive particle swarm optimization for non-smooth economic dispatch

This paper proposes a novel method for solving the Non-convex Economic Dispatch (NED) problems, by the Fuzzy Adaptive Modified Particle Swarm Optimization (FAMPSO). Practical ED problems have non-smooth cost functions with equality and inequality constraints when generator valve-point loading effects are taken into account. Modern heuristic optimization techniques have been given much attention by many researchers due to their ability to find an almost global optimal solution for ED problems. PSO is one of modern heuristic algorithms, in which particles change place to get close to the best position and find the global minimum point. However, the classic PSO may converge to a local optimum solution and the performance of the PSO highly depends on the internal parameters. To overcome these drawbacks, in this paper, a new mutation is proposed to improve the global searching capability and prevent the convergence to local minima. Also, a fuzzy system is used to tune its parameters such as inertia weight and learning factors.     

Hybrid SOA–SQP algorithm for dynamic economic dispatch with valve-point effects

This paper proposes a hybrid technique combining a new heuristic algorithm named seeker optimization algorithm (SOA) and sequential quadratic programming (SQP) method for solving dynamic economic dispatch problem with valve-point effects. The SOA is based on the concept of simulating the act of human searching, where the search direction is based on the empirical gradient (EG) by evaluating the response to the position changes and the step length is based on uncertainty reasoning by using a simple fuzzy rule. In this paper, SOA is used as a base level search, which can give a good direction to the optimal global region and SQP as a local search to fine tune the solution obtained from SOA. Thus SQP guides SOA to find optimal or near optimal solution in the complex search space. Two test systems i.e., 5 unit with losses and 10 unit without losses, have been taken to validate the efficiency of the proposed hybrid method. Simulation results clearly show that the proposed method outperforms the existing method in terms of solution quality.     

Hybrid optimization algorithm for modeling and management of micro grid connected system

In this paper, a hybrid optimization algorithm is proposed for modeling and managing the micro grid (MG) system. The management of distributed energy sources with MG is a multi-objective problem which consists of wind turbine (WT), photovoltaic (PV) array, fuel cell (FC), micro turbine (MT) and diesel generator (DG). Because, perfect economic model of energy source of the MG units are needed to describe the operating cost of the output power generated, the objective of the hybrid model is to minimize the fuel cost of the MG sources such as FC, MT and DG. The problem formulation takes into consideration the optimal configuration of the MG at a minimum fuel cost, operation and maintenance costs as well as emissions reduction. Here, the hybrid algorithm is obtained as artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm, which is used in two stages. The first stage of the ABC gets the optimal MG configuration at a minimum fuel cost for the required load demand. From the minimized fuel cost functions, the operation and maintenance cost as well as the emission is reduced using the second stage of the ABC. The proposed method is implemented in the Matlab/Simulink platform and its effectiveness is analyzed by comparing with existing techniques. The comparison demonstrates the superiority of the proposed approach and confirms its potential to solve the problem.     

Solving the economic dispatch problem with a modified quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization method

In this paper, a modified quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization (QPSO) method is proposed to solve the economic dispatch (ED) problem in power systems, whose objective is to simultaneously minimize the generation cost rate while satisfying various equality and inequality constraints. The proposed method, denoted as QPSO-DM, combines the QPSO algorithm with differential mutation operation to enhance the global search ability of the algorithm. Many nonlinear characteristics of the generator, such as ramp rate limits, prohibited operating zones, and nonsmooth cost functions are considered when the proposed method is used in practical generator operation. The feasibility of the QPSO–DM method is demonstrated by three different power systems. It is compared with the QPSO, the differential evolution (DE), the particle swarm optimization (PSO), and the genetic algorithm (GA) in terms of the solution quality, robustness and convergence property. The simulation results show that the proposed QPSO–DM method is able to obtain higher quality solutions stably and efficiently in the ED problem than any other tested optimization algorithm.     

基于改进混沌粒子群算法的火电厂经济负荷分配

提出了一种改进混沌粒子群算法,将抛物线与混沌序列相融合产生惯性权重,并引入遗传算法中的交叉思想,增加种群中粒子的多样性.建立了考虑汽轮机阀点效应的火电厂经济负荷分配模型,并采用等概率负荷调整约束处理方法处理经济负荷分配中的约束条件,以40台机组经济负荷分配为例进行仿真计算.结果表明:与传统混沌粒子群算法相比,改进混沌粒子群算法优化后的煤耗成本最佳值约降低0.78%;通过与其他智能优化算法的对比,验证了所提出的改进算法具有更好的优化效果和鲁棒性.     

含分布式发电并网虚拟发电厂鲁棒优化经济调度方法

文章基于鲁棒优化理论建立了虚拟发电厂最优经济调度模型。首先以虚拟发电厂发电净收益最大为目标函数,计及出力计划约束、机组运行约束、机组启停约束、储能运行约束等必要约束条件建立系统优化运行模型;然后考虑风光出力区间不确定性,以风光出力为自然决策者,以虚拟发电厂为系统决策者,分别制定博弈策略和支付,建立虚拟发电厂最优经济调度鲁棒优化模型,并对其Nash均衡点进行分析;基于两阶段松弛法将所建立的鲁棒优化模型转化为有限可解的步骤;最后通过一个算例验证了所建立的模型在制定虚拟发电厂运行计划方面的经济优势。     

A novel meta-heuristic optimization methodology for solving various types of economic dispatch problem

The increasing costs of fuel and operation of thermal power generating units warrant development of optimization methodologies for economic dispatch (ED) problems. Optimization methodologies that are based on meta-heuristic procedures could assist power generation policy analysts to achieve the goal of minimizing the generation costs. In this context, the objective of this study is to present a novel approach based on harmony search (HS) algorithm for solving ED problems, aiming to provide a practical alternative for conventional methods. To demonstrate the efficiency and applicability of the proposed method and for the purposes of comparison, various types of ED problems are examined. The results of this study show that the new proposed approach is able to find more economical loads than those determined by other methods.     

A new hybrid approach for nonconvex economic dispatch problem with valve-point effect

In literature, economic dispatch problems are generally categorized as convex and nonconvex optimization problems. In this study, a solution is proposed for economic dispatch problem with valve point effect, which is one of the nonconvex optimization problems. For this reason the hybrid approach used for solution of this problem is formed as a combination of modified subgradient (MSG) and harmony search (HS) algorithms. This approach (MSG-HS) is applied in three different lossy test systems (Three machines 6-bus, IEEE 5-machines 14-bus, IEEE 6-machines 30-bus systems) solved with different methods in the literature. System losses are calculated by using B loss matrix. The resulting optimal solution values are compared with the solution values in the literature and the results are discussed.     

A new fuzzy adaptive hybrid particle swarm optimization algorithm for non-linear, non-smooth and non-convex economic dispatch problem

Economic dispatch (ED) plays an important role in power system operation. ED problem is a non-smooth and non-convex problem when valve-point effects of generation units are taken into account. This paper presents an efficient hybrid evolutionary approach for solving the ED problem considering the valve-point effect. The proposed algorithm combines a fuzzy adaptive particle swarm optimization (FAPSO) algorithm with Nelder–Mead (NM) simplex search called FAPSO-NM. In the resulting hybrid algorithm, the NM algorithm is used as a local search algorithm around the global solution found by FAPSO at each iteration. Therefore, the proposed approach improves the performance of the FAPSO algorithm significantly. The algorithm is tested on two typical systems consisting of 13 and 40 thermal units whose incremental fuel cost functions take into account the valve-point loading effects.     

Reliable and efficient approach for mitigating the shading effect on photovoltaic module based on Modified Artificial Bee Colony algorithm

The operation and performance of a photovoltaic system (PV) are affected by some factors such as; solar radiation, ambient temperature, PV array configuration and shadow which may be either completely or partially. The partially shadow is caused by clouds, trees due to wind, neighboring buildings and utilities. The shadow effect causes the multiple local maximum power points in the PV module voltage-power characteristics and only one Global Maximum Power Point (GMPP); additionally the shadowing causes high power loss in the shaded cells and produces hot spot. In this paper a new optimization approach based on proposed Modified Artificial Bee Colony (MABC) algorithm is used to solve a proposed constrained objective function of PV module power loss and mitigate the shading effect. The proposed MABC is compared with GA, PSO and ABC. The obtained results proved that the MABC is the most efficient algorithm in solving the objective function that mitigating the power loss in the PV module under partially shading effect.     

Interactive DE for solving combined security environmental economic dispatch considering FACTS technology

This paper presents an efficient interactive differential evolution (IDE) to solve the multi-objective security environmental/economic dispatch (SEED) problem considering multi shunt flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices. Two sub problems are proposed.The first one is related to the active power planning to minimize the combined total fuel cost and emissions, while the second is a reactive power planning (RPP) using multi shunt FACTS device based static VAR compensator (SVC) installed at specified buses to make fine corrections to the voltage deviation, voltage phase profiles and reactive power violation. The migration operation inspired from biogeography-based optimization (BBO) algorithm is newly introduced in the proposed approach, thereby effectively exploring and exploiting promising regions in a space search by creating dynamically new efficient partitions. This new mechanism based migration between individuals from different subsystems makes the initial partitions to react more by changing experiences. To validate the robustness of the proposed approach, the proposed algorithm is tested on the Algerian 59-bus electrical network and on a large system, 40 generating units considering valve-point loading effect. Comparison of the results with recent global optimization methods show the superiority of the proposed IDE approach and confirm its potential for solving practical optimal power flow in terms of solution quality and convergence characteristics.     

A modified honey bee mating optimization algorithm for multiobjective placement of renewable energy resources

Electrical generators of renewable electricity resources are quiet, clean and reliable. Optimal placement of renewable electricity generators (REGs) results in reduction of objective functions like losses, costs of electrical generation and voltage deviation. Because of recent technology developments of photovoltaic units, wind turbine and fuel cell units, only these generators are considered in this paper. This work presents a multiobjective optimization algorithm for the siting and sizing of renewable electricity generators. The objectives consist of minimization of costs, emission and losses of distributed system and optimization of voltage profile. This multiobjective optimization is solved by the Improved honey bee mating optimization (HBMO) algorithm. In the proposed algorithm, an external repository is considered to save non-dominated (Pareto) solutions found during the search process. Since the objective functions are not the same, a fuzzy clustering technique is used to control the size of the repository within the limits. This algorithm is executed on a typical 70-bus test system. Results of the case study show the proper siting and sizing of REGs are important to improve the voltage profile, reduce costs, emission and losses of distribution system. The main feature of the algorithm refers to its accuracy and calculation speed.     

Squirrel search algorithm for economic dispatch with valve-point effects and multiple fuels

ABSTRACT

This paper bestows a new swarm intelligence approach, Squirrel Search Algorithm (SSA) to solve Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) of the thermal unit by addressing the valve point loading effects and multiple fuel options. SSA inspires the foraging behavior of squirrels which is based on dynamic jumping and gliding strategies. The main intention of the ELD problem is to minimize the total generation cost of units while assuring various system constraints. Renovate strategy and selection rules are used in the SSA algorithm to handle the constraints appropriately. The practicability of the proposed algorithm is tested on six different power test systems having different sizes and intricacies. Simulation results ascertain that the proposed SSA approach outperforms the other existing heuristic optimization techniques in terms of solution quality, robustness, and computational efficiency. Consequently, the proposed SSA can be an efficient approach for solving the ELD problems with valve point loading impacts and multi-fuel options.