Solution To Constrained Economic Load Dispatch

Abstract

The power system in modern world has grown in complexity of interconnection and power demands. The focus has now shifted to enhancing performance, increasing customer focus, lowering cost, reliability and clean power. In this changed modern word where we face scarcity of energy, with an ever increasing cost of power generation, environmental concerns necessitate some sort of optimum economic dispatch. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used to allot active power among the generating stations which satisfy the system constraints and thereby minimizes the cost of power generated. The feasibility of this method is analysed for its accuracy and its rate of convergence. The economic load dispatch problem is carried for three and six unit systems using PSO and conventional lagrange method for both cases i.e. neglecting and including transmission line losses. The results of PSO method was compared with that of conventional method and was found to be superior. The convergence characteristics in PSO method were also found both for loss included and loss neglected case. The conventional optimization methods are unable to solve many complex problems due to convergence of local optimum solution. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) since its initiation during the last 15 years, has been a great solution to the practical constrained economic load dispatch (ELD) problems. The optimization technique is evolving constantly to provide better and fast results.