A differential evolution approach to optimal generator maintenance scheduling of the nigerian power system

The goal of optimal generator maintenance scheduling is to evolve optimal preventive maintenance schedule of generating units for economical and reliable operation of a power system while satisfying system load demand and crew constraints. In this paper, the differential evolution (DE), an evolutionary computation algorithm that utilizes the differential information to guide its further search, is applied to effectively solve the generator maintenance scheduling (GMS) optimization problem. The proposed method can handle mixed integer discrete continuous optimization problems. Results are presented with the DE algorithm on two different case studies for Nigerian power system.