Differential Evolution Algorithm for Generation Scheduling Considering Valve Point Effects

Power system operation involves some kind of optimization for ensuring economy, security and stability. Economic load dispatch is one such optimization problems and it is applied for minimizing the total fuel cost. Optimizing the fuel cost is done by properly setting the real power generation from the generators in a power system. Differential evolution is a simple and efficient evolutionary algorithm for function optimization over continuous spaces. This paper proposes DE algorithm for solving economic load dispatch problems that take into account nonlinear generator features such as valve point effect. The results are compared with other optimization techniques such as Particle Swarm Optimization, Genetic Algorithm and its efficiency is proved.