Gaussian Particle swarm optimization for combined economic emission dispatch

The major concern of the power system utilities is to not only deliver high quality power supply to the end users but to do it with minimum possible fuel cost and emission levels. Combined Economic Emission Dispatch (CEED) is a way to compute the optimal generation of the power system by minimizing the fuel cost and emission levels simultaneously. The CEED is a multi objective problem and in general solved considering the operational limits on generators and transmission losses as constraints. But, in the present work the ramp rate limits and prohibiting operating zones of the generator are also considered as constraints. Literature reveals that Particle swarm optimization (PSO) method is a powerful technique for solving optimization problems. This paper proposes a new approach of PSO method named as ‘Gaussian PSO method’ that considers a Gaussian density function to eliminate the drawback of general PSO method and to obtain a global optimal solution. The Gaussian PSO method is applied on two test systems for solving the CEED problem. The results obtained are compared to those obtained by general PSO method to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in obtaining global optimal solution.