An Orthogonal Array Optimization for the Economic Dispatch with Nonsmooth Cost Functions

This paper presents a new algorithm that applies the Taguchi method to solve the economic dispatch problem with nonsmooth cost functions. In our approach, we employ the Taguchi method that involves the use of orthogonal arrays in estimating the gradient of the cost function. The Taguchi method has been widely used in experimental designs for problems with multiple parameters where the optimization of a cost function is required. The use of the Taguchi method for the economic dispatch problem is a novel idea and it leads to efficient algorithms that can find a satisfactory solution by minimizing the cost function in a few iterations. Simulation results show that the Taguchi method is insensitive to initial values of parameters, and is more effective than other previously developed algorithms. In addition, our algorithm is suitable for parallel implementations.