A Comparative Analysis of Optimization Techniques for Economic Dispatch in Electric Power Systems

ABSTRACT A comparative analysis of efficient algorithms for optimum economic dispatching of electric power systems is presented. The problem deals with a system including thermal generation, to determine the optimum loading to satisfy load requirements and observe system and equipment constraints. As a result of an extensive study of available optimization techniques, three methods emerged as most practical tools for the dispatching function. The methods are the Generalized Reduced Gradient (GRG) algorithm, the Lambda Iterations (LI) algorithm and the newly developed Lambda Aggregation (LA) algorithm. Details of the algorithms are given, and computational results corresponding to a large size system with 56 units are summarized in this paper. The aspect of generating the initial guess is treated thoroughly in the paper, with recommendations for each method. Computational experience with the methods shows the LA technique to be an extremely fast and robust implementation.