Thermal unit commitment using binary/real coded artificial bee colony algorithm

This paper presents a binary/real coded artificial bee colony (BRABC) algorithm to solve the thermal unit commitment problem (UCP). A novel binary coded ABC with repair strategies is used to obtain a feasible commitment schedule for each generating unit, satisfying spinning reserve and minimum up/down time constraints. Economic dispatch is carried out using real coded ABC for the feasible commitment obtained in each interval. In addition, non-linearities like valve-point effect, prohibited operating zones and multiple fuel options are included in the fuel cost functions. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm has been tested on a standard ten-unit system, on IEEE 118-bus test system and IEEE RTS 24 bus system. Results obtained show that the proposed binary ABC is efficient in generating feasible schedules. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.