Unit commitment by genetic algorithms

This paper presents an application of the genetic algorithms (GA) method for the unit commitment problem. Genetic algorithms (GA´s) are a general purpose optimization technique based on principle of natural selection and natural genetics. The Lagrangian relaxation (LR) method provides a fast solution but it may suffer from numerical convergence and solution quality problems. Numerical results on a system of 10 units are compared with results obtained using Lagrange relaxation (LR) and genetic algorithms (GA´s), show that the feature of easy implementation, better convergence, and highly near-optimal solution to the UC problem can be achieved by the GA.