Economic Dispatch Problems Using Backtracking Search Optimization

The purpose of this article is to present a backtracking search optimization technique (BSA) to determine the feasible optimum solution of the economic load dispatch (ELD) problems involving different realistic equality and inequality constraints, such as power balance, ramp rate limits, and prohibited operating zone constraints. Effects of valve-point loading, multi-fuel option of large-scale thermal plants, system transmission loss are also taken into consideration for more realistic application. Two effective operations, mutation and crossover, help BSA algorithms to find the global solution for different optimization problems. BSA has the capability to deal with multimodal problems due to its powerful exploration and exploitation capability. BSA is free from sensitive parameter control operations. Simulation results set up the proposed approach in a better stage compared to several other existing optimization techniques in terms quality of solution and computational efficiency. Results also reveal the robustness of the proposed methodology.