An elitist cuckoo search algorithm for combined heat and power economic dispatch

Combined heat and power economic dispatch (CHPED) is one of the foremost subjects in the operation of power systems. In this article, a new variant of cuckoo search (CS) algorithm, elitist CS (yECS), is advanced to tackle CHPED. During the optimisation process of the original CS as well as lots of its variants, the guidance of search directions relies merely upon the best individual, causing the loss of other beneficial information and further influencing their performance potentials. Therefore, in yECS, an elitist mechanism is developed to fully utilise the beneficial information of other elite individuals. Specifically, three new iterative strategies are developed, one for the global search phase and the other two for the local search phase. Further, a coordinated mechanism is put forward to effectively integrate the local iterative strategies, thus helping yECS in maintaining an appropriate balance between exploitation and exploration. The superior performance of yECS is firstly substantiated via CEC 2017 test suite and two engineering design problems and then it is utilised to address CHPED problems. All optimal dispatch results acquired by yECS are feasible and in most cases display remarkable improvements over the results determined by other CS variants and some recently-published literature results.