PARALLEL GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR GENERATION EXPANSION PLANNING

This paper presents a parallel generic algorithm for solving the long- range generation expansion planning, which is a combinatorial optimiza tion problem that determines the order of newly introduced generation units at each interval of the planning years. The method is implemente d on a transputer that is one of the practical parallel processors. Th e effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using a typical expansion problem with four technologies and five intervals and compa red favorably with the conventional dynamic programming method and gen etic algorithm. The numerical results reveal the speed and effectivene ss of the proposed algorithm for solving the problem.