Short-term hydro-thermal coordination based on interior point nonlinear programming and genetic algorithms

This paper presents a combined primal-dual logarithmic-barrier interior point and genetic algorithm for short-term hydro-thermal coordination. The genetic algorithm is used to compute the optimal on/off status of thermal units, while the interior point module deals with the optimal solution of the hydraulically-coupled short-term economic dispatch of thermal and hydro units. Inter-temporal constraints both due to cascaded reservoirs and maximum up and down ramps of thermal units are included in the latter module. Results from realistic cases based on the Spanish power system are reported.