Optimization of Economic Load Dispatch Thermal Power Plant Using Differential Evolution Technique

This paper presents an algorithm for solving optimal power flow problem through the application of Differential Evolution (DE). Economic Dispatch is the process of allocating the required load demand between the available generation units such that the cost of operation is minimized. There have been many algorithms proposed for economic dispatch out of which a Differential Evolution (DE) is discussed in this paper. Differential Evolution also incorporates an efficient way of selfadapting mutation using small population. The effectiveness of algorithm has been tested for a practical economic dispatch problem on a test system having three generating units. Thermal power generating firms needs to minimize fuel cost, for better profit at the same time it should satisfy system load demand, real, reactive power limit, voltage limit, power transmission limit and other limitations. For generation cost minimization Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) was developed. When cost is the single objective, the power generation may pollute the environment. Thermal electric power could not be generated without pollution but this pollution can be reduced for the sake of good and healthy atmospheric condition. The proposed method is compared with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and its variants Keywords— Differential Evolution, Economic Dispatch, Particle Swarm Optimization, PSO variants