Solving Economic Dispatch Problems with Valve-point Effects using Particle Swarm Optimization

Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a swarm intelligence optimization method inspired from birds’ flocking or fish schooling. Many improved versions of PSO are reported in literature, including some by the authors. Original as well as improved versions of PSO have proven their applicability to various fields like science, engineering and industries. Economic dispatch (ED) problem is one of the fundamental issues in power system operations. This problem turns out to be a non linear continuous optimization problem. In this paper, economic dispatch problem is solved using original PSO and two of its improved variants, namely, Laplace Crossover PSO (LXPSO) and Quadratic Approximation PSO (qPSO), in order to find better results than reported in the literature. Results are also compared with the earlier published results.