A COMPARISON OF GENETIC ALGORITHMS WITH CONVENTIONAL TECHNIQUES ON A SPECTRUM OF POWER ECONOMIC-DISPATCH PROBLEMS

The mathematical formulation for a power economic dispatch problem can be variously defined according to utilities' central focus. Conventio nally, it is common practice to approach different dispatch problems v ia different techniques. The time and design effort, thus induced in p artly altering or entirely replacing the existing technique, is not de sirable. This paper demonstrates the robustness of a search technique based on genetic algorithms (GAs) against a number of conventional tec hniques over a spectrum of power dispatch problems. The problems inves tigated are in increasing order of complexity. Initially, GAs cannot d o better than conventional techniques when the simple problem formulat ion is encountered, e.g. in the case of static classic Economic Dispat ch. However, when problems become progressively more complicated, GAs gradually overtake conventional techniques which are limited mainly by solution accuracy. The outcome of the study clearly shows the robustn ess and suitability of GAs on the power dispatch problems, and verifie s the fact that the more complex the problem is, the more benefit one can obtain from a GA. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.