Non-convex constrained economic dispatch with valve point loading effect using a grey wolf optimizer algorithm

Economic dispatch (ED) is an optimization tool that is used to allocate active load demands to the generating units through optimizing cost functions subject to the non-linear and non-convex operation constraints. Economic dispatch is a non-convex and non-linear problem in power systems. The problem characteristic is due to the valve-point effect in the generation unit cost functions, transmission losses, emission constrains and etc. Therefore, proposing an effective economic dispatch solution method for this optimization problem is important. Most optimization algorithm methods suffer from poor convergence characteristics for larger constrained problems. To overcome this difficulty, grey wolf optimization (GWO) approach is presented in this paper to solve the non-linear and non-convex economic dispatch problem taking into account valve-point effects and transmission losses. To represent the effectiveness of the GWO algorithm, the obtained results are compared with some existing meta-heuristics methods. These results show the effectiveness and the superiority of GWO algorithm over the other well-known methods.