Economic Load Dispatch Using MRPSO with Generator Ramp Rate Limits Constraint

Economic load dispatch (ELD) is an important optimization task in power system. It is the process of allocating generation among the committed units such that the constraints imposed are satisfied and the fuel cost is minimized. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a population-based optimization technique that can be applied to a wide range of problems but it lacks global search ability in the last stage of iterations. This paper used a novel PSO with a moderate-random-search strategy (MRPSO), which enhances the ability of particles to explore the solution spaces more effectively and increases their convergence rates. In this paper the power and usefulness of the MRPSO algorithm is demonstrated through its application to three and six generator systems with ramp rate limit constraints.