Abstract In the absence of a deterministic algorithm for economic load dispatch optimization problem (ELDOP), existing algorithms proposed as solutions are inevitably non-deterministic heuristic algorithms. This paper, therefore, proposes a balance-and-swap algorithm to solve an ELDOP. Firstly, it balances the initial value to by subsequently reducing power generation for each adult-step and baby-step and selects the minimum cost-generating method. Subsequently, it selects afresh the minimum cost-generating method after an optimization of the previously selected value with adult-step baby-step swap and giant-step swap methods. Finally, we perform the ± swap. When applied to the 3 most prevalently used economic load dispatch problem data, the proposed algorithm has obtained improved results for two and a result identical to the existing one for the rest. This algorithm thus could be applied to ELDOP for it has proven to consistently yield identical results and to be applicable to all types of data.