A New Algorithm for Power System Scheduling Problems

This paper presents a parallel-refined simulated annealing (PRSA) approach for the generator maintenance scheduling (GMS) problem to maximize profit objective function. The merit of simulated annealing (SA) is preserved and the deficiency is pruned away in the proposed PRSA. The proposed PRSA is an effective method because the multiple search trajectories parallel and refined in each stage. The near optimal solution for each trajectory in current state can be derived from the local optimal solutions by using the parallel optimization process. The proposed parallel searching strategy can obtain optimal or near-optimal solution for the GMS problem. This paper has demonstrated the effectiveness and feasibility of applying the proposed approach for the 50-unit GMS problem.