A Novel Coding Scheme for Practical Economic Dispatch by Modified Particle Swarm Approach

This paper proposes a new approach and coding scheme for solving economic dispatch problems in power systems through simulated annealing like particle swarm optimization (SA-PSO). This novel coding scheme could effectively prevent obtaining infeasible solutions through the application of stochastic search methods, thereby dramatically improving search efficiency and solution quality. Many nonlinear characteristics of power generators, and their operational constraints, such as generation limitations, ramp rate limits, prohibited operating zones, transmission loss, and nonlinear cost functions, were all considered for practical operation. The effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method were demonstrated by four system case studies and compared with previous literature in terms of solution quality and computational efficiency. The experiment showed encouraging results, suggesting that the proposed approach was capable of efficiently determining higher quality solutions addressing economic dispatch problems.