Application of Symbiotic Organisms Search Algorithm to solve various economic load dispatch problems

Abstract

This paper proposes the application of Symbiotic Organisms Search (SOS) Algorithm to solve the various Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) problems. Both classical ELD problem which has smooth fuel cost function and nonconvex ELD problem which has nonconvex and discontinuous fuel cost function due to considering of some practical constraints like valve point effects, ramp rate limits and prohibited generating zones have been solved in the study. Three different test cases have been used to show the efficiency and reliability of the proposed algorithm. 38-unit test system has been used for classical ELD and 3-unit and 15-unit test systems have been used for nonconvex ELD problem. Results have been compared to various heuristic methods reported before in the literature and they show that proposed algorithm converges to the global optimum in early iterations and can produce superior results than others in the solution of ELD problems which have both smooth and nonconvex and discontinuous fuel cost function.