Generator maintenance scheduling of electric power systems using genetic algorithms with integer representation

The effective maintenance scheduling of power system generators is very important to a power utility for the economical and reliable operation of a power system. Many mathematical methods have been implemented for generator maintenance scheduling (GMS). However, these methods have many limitations and require many approximations. Here a Genetic Algorithm is proposed for GMS problems in order to overcome some of the limitations of the conventional methods. This paper formulates a general GMS problem using a reliability criterion as an integer programming problem, and demonstrates the use of GAs with three different problem encodings: binary, binary for integer and integer. The GA performances for each of these representations are analysed and compared for a test problem based on a practical power system scenario. The effects of different GA parameters are also studied. The results show that the integer GA is a very effective method for GMS problems.