Impact of demand side management on unit commitment problem

Growing energy demand and its remedial solution is a great challenge of power industries. This paper deals with demand side management in unit commitment using two essential approaches of energy balance (i.e. energy shifting) and load reduction during peak hours. Demand side management is a crucial job of reshaping the inconsistent load demand either by shifting demand from peak period to off-peak or low load period or reducing load demand during peak period. This ultimately results in energy saving and cost reduction of a system. A test system of 26 generating units is considered for simulation study using gbest artificial bee colony algorithm. The test results confirm significant savings in cost and energy consumption while peak load demand is reduced.