The application of Imperialist Competitive Algorithm to the combined heat and power economic dispatch problem

As the penetration of multicarrier energy systems in power grid increases, the economical optimization analysis are becoming of increasing importance more and more. One of the most challenging issues in this context is optimizing the sophisticated combined carrier systems in power system operation field, especially solving the combined heat and power economic dispatch (CHPED) problems. This paper presents a solution for the sophisticated and non-convex CHPED problems applying the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA). The idea of the introduced algorithm is derived from the social and political development of human societies. Different study cases by taking the effects of valve-point loading effect (VPLE) and transmission ohmic losses have been simulated to confirm the efficiency of the suggested algorithm. The obtained results from the ICA-based CHPED problem are compared with those obtained by various algorithms to prove the performance of the proposed algorithm in searching the optimal solution. As the results confirm, the ICA has superiority on CPSO, TVAC-PSO, RCGA, RCO, BCO, EP, DE, EMA, CSO, RCGA-IMM and GSA, which were previously proposed in this domain for solving the described problem.