A Hybrid Multiobjective Solution for the Short-term Hydro-power Dispatch Problem: a Swarm Evolutionary Approach

The unit dispatch problem is defined as the attribution of operational values to each generation unit inside a hydro-power plant (HPP), given some criteria such as the total power to be generated, or the operational bounds of each unit. An optimal dispatch programming for hydroelectric units in HPP provides a larger production of electricity, with minimal water use. This paper presents an evolutionary approach to optimize the multi-criteria electric dispatch problem in a general HPP, based on a Multi-objective Evolutionary Swarm Hybridization (MESH) algorithm. The proposed approach integrates mathematical models and evolutionary swarm computation. The experimental analysis shows that the proposed MESH algorithm is able to reach competitive results when compared with classical evolutionary algorithms, the NGA-II and SPEA2 basing on ANOVA inference test. Results also show that the proposed MESH is able to save a large amount of water in the energy production process, supplying the requested load, and minimizing blackout risks and generating a profit around $275,000 monthly.