Ant Lion optimizer applied to economic emission load dispatch problems turning off the engines

A problem that is much studied today is the economic emission load dispatch (EELD) that seeks to minimize the total cost of fuel consumption and carbon emission. This problem is different from the economic load dispatch (ELD) that only seeks to minimize costs. In this work is applied a new optimization tool to solve this problem, the ant lion optimizer (ALO). Two functions are being used in this multi-objective metaheuristic algorithm, the cost function and emission function with their respective restrictions. Many materials and methods have been elaborated to fix the economic emission load dispatch, among them are as follows: differential evolution method, gradient method and Newton's method. The results for this case study, with the two application of ant lion, one with all generators on and another with the less efficient generators turned off, and in both cases the demand being met, were outstanding having a reduction of 9.21% in the total fuel cost, comparing to classical methods that distribute the generation of power among all generators, including the least efficient ones. This method helps the plant operators in the decision making of preventive maintenance of machines that are not working in. Besides solving the problem of the EELD this work also takes into account the shutdown of less efficient generators to meet the demand.