Hybridization of harmony search with Nelder-Mead algorithm for combined heat and power economic dispatch problem

A new hybridized algorithm is developed to solve the combined heat and power economic dispatch (CHPED) problem. Due to the non-convexity of the CHPED problem, the global optimum is difficult to achieve. The presented approach combines the algorithms of harmony search (HS) and Nelder-Mead (NM), and the hybridized algorithm is called the NM-HS algorithm. The hybridized NM-HS algorithm improves the efficiency of the two original algorithms, and also the robustness. Two benchmark examples demonstrate the good performance of the NM-HS algorithm. The solutions obtained is better than, or at least is the same as, other methods.