Species-based Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization for economic load dispatch

Economic load dispatch (ELD) is one of the important optimization problems in the operation of power systems which can be helpful to create effective generating management plans. In this paper, the ELD problem is discussed considering transmission network losses and practical constraints of plants such as generation ramp rate, prohibited operation zones, and valve-point effects. A new method called Species-based Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization (SQPSO), which is based on the Quantum Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO), is proposed and applied in order to solve this problem possessing non-smooth and smooth cost functions. In the proposed intelligent technique, the particles are classified according to the output results and they explore the answers in each iteration in-group form. The new method has just one control parameter. The simulation results and the numerical investigations of various examples are compared with other conventional techniques to assess the efficiency of the proposed method. The results of the numerical investigations well depict that in spite of its simplicity, the proposed method is superior over the other techniques from standpoint of optimum answer exploitation as well as possessing appropriate and acceptable speed and stability. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.