Economic Load Dispatch Optimisation
Hariom Singh Rathore1, Kuldeep Swarnkar2
1
Research Scholar, Electrical Engineering Department, MITS,
Gwalior
2
Asst. Prof. Electrical Engineering Department, MITS, Gwalior
Abstract
In this paper, comparative study of two approaches, Genetic Algorithm (GA)
and Lambda Iteration method (LIM) have been used to provide the solution
of the economic load dispatch (ELD) problem. The ELD problem is defined
as to minimize the total operating cost of a power system while meeting the
total load plus transmission losses within generation limits. GA and LIM have
been used individually for solving two cases, first is three generator test
system and second is ten generator test system. The results are compared
which reveals that GA can provide more accurate results with fast
convergence characteristics and is superior to LIM.
Keywords: Economic load dispatch, genetic algorithm, lambda
iteration method, generator systems.
1. Introduction
Economic Load Dispatch is the very important issues in the area of Power System.
Load demands are increasing day by day. With the development of integrated power system,
it becomes necessary to operate the plant units economically. An important objective in the
operation of such a power system is to generate and transmit power to meet the system load
demand at minimum fuel cost by an optimal mix of various types of plants [1]. Thus ELD
occupies an important position in the electric power system. For any specified load condition,
ELD determines the power output of each plant (and each generating unit within the plant)
which will minimize the overall cost of fuel needed to serve the system load taking in
consideration all practical constraints [2].
The use of renewable energy for electricity generation will increase in the future due to
environmental pressures, particularly regarding global warming and emission issues.
Therefore, the role of renewable energy generation will become more significant in relation
to the operation and management of electrical systems. The difficulties with renewable
energy, despite its advantages for the environment, are the continuity and reliability problems
associated with its operation. The output of some renewable generation, such as wind and
solar generators, is determined by the climate and weather conditions and operating patterns
will therefore follow these natural conditions. These patterns may not match either the system
load profile or the market demand. In electricity markets, all commercial generators should
be able to operate in a mode that is responsive to the applied market-trading mechanism, i.e.
its operation should be responsive to the supply and demand mechanisms of the electricity
markets. It is clear that the problem of how to integrate renewables within electricity markets
needs special consideration and will require new methods for allocating its output. Wind
energy is the fastest growing renewable energy source because of its abundant availability in
nature and the maturity of its technology. In 2002 the European Wind Energy Association
(EWEA) estimated the use of wind turbines in the UE-15 to be 5.5% of total energy supply
and predicted that it would increase to more than 12% by 2020 [1]. Bio-diesel is another
emerging renewable energy source, which is able to act as a replacement for oil [2]. The
attractive property of bio-diesel is its capability to be stored and to be used by fast ramp rate
engines, such as diesel engines. Biodiesel may potentially be used as a back-up source for
renewable energy resources. Therefore, in order to represent renewable energy the paper will
use wind as the main source with bio-diesel energy as a back up. The paper will focus on the
short-term dispatch of renewable sources in an electricity market. As indicated, the main
problem faced by these sources is the intermittent nature of its output, which often does not
suit the market-trading mechanisms in place. Doherty [6] identifies two scenarios for
dispatching wind turbines in the power system. The first is the fuel saver scenario that does
not consider wind forecast power in the load dispatch. In real time operation, when wind
power output is present, conventional generators will reduce their output in merit order to
accommodate wind power. If wind power output increases such that it cannot be
accommodated by reducing conventional generation, then wind production will be curtailed.
There will be wasted wind output. The second scenario is the forecasted approach. In this
scenario, wind power forecasts are included in the ELD calculation. The forecasted approach
should consider the increase of reserve on the system due to wind forecast error. Therefore,
reserve constraints in the ELD of high wind power will need to become more complex. Wind
forecasting will be an important part of the ELD problem. Consequently, a more flexible
and powerful method that can cope with constraints caused by wind penetration should be
used to solve the ELD problem. Recent GA methods have been reported as an effective
method for solving various cases of the ELD problem in power systems with a variety of
characteristics [9-12]. Another advantage of GAs is that they can be deployed to overcome
problems such as nonsmoothness, or discontinuity of system functions [12]. The paper will
investigate a GA based method for solving the ELD problem to maximise profit for
generators in power systems that contain renewable energy.
II . ECONOMIC LOAD DISPATCH
2.1 Economic load dispatch The Economic Dispatch can be defined as the process of
allocating generation levels to the generating units, so that the system load is supplied entirely
and most economically. For an interconnected system, it is necessary to minimize the
expenses. The economic load dispatch is used to define the production level of each plant,
so that the total cost of generation and transmission is minimum for a prescribed schedule of
load. The objective of economic load dispatch is to minimise the overall cost of generation
2.2 Generator Operating Cost The total cost of operation includes the fuel cost, cost of labour,
supplies and maintenance. Generally, costs of labour, supplies and maintenance are fixed
percentages of incoming fuel costs. The power output of fossil plants is increased
sequentially by opening a set of valves to its steam turbine at the inlet. The throttling losses
are large when a valve is just opened and small when it is fully opened.
Figure 1.shows the simple model of a fossil plant dispatching purposes. The cost is usually
approximated by one or more quadratic segments. The operating cost of the plant has the
form shown in Figure 2.
The fuel cost curve may have a number of discontinuities. The discontinuities occur when
the output power is extended by using additional boilers, steam condensers, or other
equipment. They may also appear if the cost represents the operation of an entire power
station, and hence cost has discontinuities on paralleling of generators. Within the continuity
range the incremental fuel cost may be expressed by a number of short line segments or
piece-wise linearization. The min giP is the minimum loading limit below which, operating
the unit proves to be uneconomical (or may be technically infeasible) and max giP is the
maximum output limit.
3. FORMULATION OF ELD PROBLEM 3.1 Objective Function The objective of the
economic dispatch problem is to minimize the total fuel cost of thermal power units subjected
to the equality and inequality constraints of a power system. The simplified cost function of
each generator can be represented as a quadratic function as given in (2)
3.2 Equality and Inequality Constraints 3.1.1 Active power balance equation For power
balance, an equality constraint should be satisfied. The total generated power should be the
same as total load demand plus the total transmission line loss.
Where, PD is the total load demand and is the total line loss.
3.1.2 Minimum and maximum power limits Generation output of each generator should be
lie between maximum and minimum limits. The corresponding inequality constraints for
each generator are
Where min giP is the lower permissible limit of real power generation, max giP is the upper
permissible limit of real power generation.
4. GENETIC ALGORITHM A Genetic Algorithm (GA) is a search technique used in
computing to find exact or approximate solutions to optimization and search problems.
Genetic algorithms are categorized as global search heuristics. Genetic algorithms are a
particular class of Evolutionary Algorithms (EA) that use techniques inspired by
evolutionary biology such as inheritance, mutation, selection, and crossover. Genetic
algorithms are implemented in a computer simulation in which a population of abstract
representations (called chromosomes or the genotype of the genome) of candidate solutions
(called individuals, creatures, or phenotypes) to an optimization problem evolves toward
better solutions. Traditionally, solutions are represented in binary as strings of 0s and 1s, but
other encodings are also possible. The evolution usually starts from a population of randomly
generated individuals and happens in generations. In each generation, the fitness of every
individual in the population is evaluated, multiple individuals are stochastically selected from
the current population (based on their fitness), and modified (recombined and possibly
randomly mutated) to form a new population. The new population is then used in the next
iteration of the algorithm. Commonly, the algorithm terminates when either a maximum
number of generations has been produced, or a satisfactory fitness level has been reached for
the population. If the algorithm has terminated due to a maximum number of generations, a
satisfactory solution may or may not have been reached. Once we have the genetic
representation and the fitness function defined, GA proceeds to initialize a population of
solutions randomly, and then improve it through repetitive application of mutation,
crossover, inversion, and selection operators. 4.1 Representation Genetic Algorithms are
derived from a study of biological systems. In biological systems evolution takes place on
organic devices used to encode the structure of living beings. These organic devices are
known as chromosomes. A living being is only a decoded structure of the chromosomes.
Natural selection is the link between chromosomes and the performance of their decoded
structures. In GA, the design variables or features that characterize an individual are
represented in an ordered list called a string. Each design variable corresponds to a gene and
the string of genes corresponds to a chromosome. Chromosomes are made of discrete units
called genes. 4.2 Encoding Normally, a chromosome corresponds to a unique solution x in
the solution space. This requires a mapping mechanism between the solution space and the
chromosomes. This mapping is called an encoding. In fact, GA works on the encoding of a
problem, not on the problem itself. The application of a genetic algorithm to a problem
starts with the encoding. The encoding specifies a mapping that transforms a possible
solution to the problem into a structure containing a collection of decision variables that are
relevant to the problem. 4.3 Decoding Decoding is the process of conversion of the binary
structure of the chromosomes into decimal equivalents of the feature values. Usually this
process is done after de-catenation of the entire chromosome to individual chromosomes.
The decoded feature values are used to compute the problem characteristics like the objective
function, fitness values, constraint violation and system statistical characteristics like
variance, standard deviation and rate of convergence. The stages of selection, crossover,
mutation etc are repeated till some termination condition is reached. The equivalent decimal
integer of binary string is obtained as
4.4 Initialization Initially many individual solutions are randomly generated to form an initial
population. The population size depends on the nature of the problem, but typically contains
several hundreds or thousands of possible solutions. Traditionally, the population is
generated randomly, covering the entire range of possible solutions (the search space).
Occasionally, the solutions may be "seeded" in areas where optimal solutions are likely to be
found. 4.5 Evaluation Suitability of the solutions is determined from the initial set of solution
of the problem. For this suitability determination, we use a function called fitness function.
This function is derived from the objective function and used in successive genetic operation.
The evaluation function is a procedure for establishing the fitness of each chromosome in the
population and is very much application orientated. Since Genetic Algorithms proceed in the
direction of evolving the
fittest chromosomes, and the performance is highly sensitive to the fitness values. In the case
of optimization routines, the fitness is the value of the objective function to be optimized.
Penalty functions can also be incorporated into the objective function, in order to achieve a
constrained problem.
4.6 Fitness Function The Genetic algorithm is based on Darwin’s principle that “The
candidates, which can survive, will live, others would die”. This principal is used to find
fitness value of the process for solving maximization problems. Minimization problems are
usually transferred into maximization problems using some suitable transformations. Fitness
value ) (xf is derived from the objective function and is used in successive genetic operations.
The fitness function for maximization problem can be used the same as objective function
For minimization problems, the fitness function is an equivalent maximization problem
chosen such that the optimum point remains unchanged. The following fitness function is
often used in minimization problems:
4.7 Selection During each successive generation, a proportion of the existing population is
selected to breed a new generation. Individual solutions are selected through a fitness-based
process, where fitter solutions (as measured by a fitness function) are typically more likely to
be selected. Certain selection methods rate the fitness of each solution and preferentially select
the best solutions. Other methods rate only a random sample of the population, as this process
may be very time consuming. Most functions are stochastic and designed so that a small
proportion of less fit solutions are selected. This helps keep the diversity of the population
large, preventing premature convergence on poor solutions. Popular and well-studied selection
methods include roulette wheel selection and tournament selection. 4.8 Reproduction The next
step is to generate a second generation population of solutions from those selected through
genetic operators: crossover (also called recombination), and/or mutation. For each new
solution to be produced, a pair of "parent" solutions is selected for breeding from the pool
selected previously. By producing a "child" solution using the above methods of crossover
and mutation, a new solution is created which typically shares many of the characteristics of
its "parents". New parents are selected for each new child, and the process continues until a
new population of solutions of appropriate size is generated. Although reproduction methods
that are based on the use of two parents are more "biology inspired,” some research suggests
more than two "parents" are better to be used to reproduce a good quality chromosome. These
processes ultimately result in the next generation population of chromosomes that is different
from the initial generation. Generally the average fitness will have increased by this procedure
for the population, since only the best organisms from the first generation are selected for
breeding, along with a small proportion of less fit solutions, for reasons already mentioned
above.
4.9 Termination This generational process is repeated until a termination condition has been
reached. Common terminating conditions are: 1.) A solution is found that satisfies minimum
criteria 2.) Fixed number of generations reached 3.) Allocated budget (computation
time/money) reached 4.) The highest ranking solution's fitness is reaching or has reached a
plateau such that successive iterations no longer produce better results 5.) Manual inspection
6.) Combinations of the above.
unit a b c d e f Pmin Pmax
1 0.00375 2 0 0.0126 1.1 22.983 50 200
2 0.0175 1.75 0 0.02 0.1 22.313 20 80
3 0.0625 1 0 0.027 0.1 25.505 15 50
4 0.00834 3.25 0 0.0291 0.005 24.9 10 35
5 0.025 3 0 0.029 0.04 24.7 10 30
6 0.025 3 0 0.0271 0.0055 25.3 12 40
Table Generalized loss coefficients
6. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The result of ELD after the implementation
of proposed GA method is discussed. The programs are implemented in MATLAB 13 The
performance is evaluated without considering losses using 6 generator
PLOSS
Pd MW P1 MW P2 MW P3 MW P4 MW P5 MW P6 MW MW F s/h
300 130.5825 68.56663 29.79104 25.41387 21.91182 23.7342 5.40191 863.6406
250 166.1875 23.28808 18.40897 13.19173 13.50654 15.417 6.429 667.376
200 113.0432 24.04951 18.618 14.35935 13.60948 16.3201 3.2221 337.9754
Pd MW P1 MW P2 MW P3 MW P4 MW P5 MW P6 MW F s/h
300 85.8496 77.0393 45.8262 31.0261 24.3243 35.9838 952.0482
250 153.3677 24.96342 20.00968 17.42255 16.68156 17 668.9483
200 117.6158 22.7334 18.25042 12.79933 13.52502 15.12 514.1901
