The economic dispatch (ED) problem considering valve-point effects (VPE), transmission loss and prohibited operating zones (POZ) is a very challenging issue due to its intrinsic nonconvex, nonsmooth and noncontinuous nature. To achieve a nearly global solution, a full mixed-integer linear programming (FMILP) formulation is proposed. Since the original loss function is highly coupled on N-dimensional space, it is usually hard to linearize entirely. To handle this difficulty, a reformulation trick is utilized, transforming the problem into a group of tractable quadratic constraints. By taking full advantage of the variable coupling relationships and applying a logarithmic size formulation technique, an FMILP formulation that requires as few binary variables and constraints as possible is consequently constructed. When the POZ restrictions are also considered, a distance-based technique is adopted, reconstructing them compatible with the previous FMILP formulation. By solving such an FMILP formulation, a nearly global solution is thus efficiently obtained. To search for a better solution, a nonlinear programming (NLP) model for the ED will be given and solved based on the FMILP solution. The case study results show that the presented FMILP formulation is very effective in solving the ED problem that involves nonconvex, nonsmooth and noncontinuous features.