Solution of non-convex economic dispatch problem considering valve loading effect by a new Modified Differential Evolution algorithm

This paper presents Economic Dispatch (ED) solution considering valve loading effect by a new Modified Differential Evolution (MDE) algorithm. Considering valve loading effect changes ED into a non-convex optimization problem. This non-convexity challenges analytical and heuristic methods in finding optimal solution in reasonable time. Differential Evolution (DE) is one of evolutionary algorithms, which has been used in many optimization problems due to its simplicity and efficiency. The proposed MDE is in the framework of differential evolution owning new mutation operator and selection mechanism inspired from Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Simulated Annealing (SA), respectively. In other words, positive characteristics of DE, GA, PSO and SA are combined to create a new efficient stochastic search technique. In the solution of the non-convex ED by the proposed stochastic search technique, an effective constraint handling method is also presented. The proposed MDE is examined on three ED test systems and compared with some of the most recently published ED solution methods. These comparisons reveal the efficiency and robustness of the proposed MDE. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.