Power economic dispatch using particle swarm optimization

Current market environment, ever growing difference between depleting energy resources and increasing power demand and increased expectations of customers from utility companies has made it necessary to adopt some good operational policies by electric utility companies. So the focus of utility companies has shifted towards increased customer focus, enhanced performance and to provide reliable supply at low cost. The electric power system must be operated in a way to schedule generations economically of generation facilities. In last two decades many evolutionary techniques has been developed to solve the optimization problems. Particle swarm optimization has acquired much recognition due to less memory requirement and its inherent simplicity. Particle swarm optimization technique proved to be having strong potential for solving complex and high dimensional optimization problem. PSO is free from local minimum solution convergence which is often encountered while solving nonlinear and non-convex optimization problem through conventional techniques. This paper presents a summarized view of application of PSO for solving power economic dispatch problem.