A Novel Heuristic Optimization Methodology for Solving of Economic Dispatch Problems

This paper presents a biogeography-based optimization (BBO) algorithm to solve the economic load Dispatch (ELD) problem with generator constraints in thermal plants. The applied method can solve the ELD problem with constraints like transmission losses, ramp rate limits, and prohibited operating zones. Biogeography is the science of the geographical distribution of biological species. The models of biogeography explain how a organisms arises, immigrate from an environment to another and getseliminated. The BBO has some characteristics that are shared with other population based optimization procedures, similar to genetic algorithms (GAs) and particle swarm optimization (PSO).The BBO algorithm mainly based on two steps: migration and mutation. The BBO has some good features in reaching to the global minimum in comparison to other evolutionary algorithms. This algorithm applied on two practical test systems that have six and fifteen thermal units, results of this paper are used to see the comparison between performances of the BBO algorithm with other existing algorithms. The result of this investigation proves the efficiency and good performance of applying BBO algorithm on ELD problem and show that this method can be a good substitute for other algorithms.