Unit Commitment Using a Heuristic Method Based on Artificial Bee Colony Optimization Algorithm

Unit commitment is one of the main problems in power systems operation and since there are plenty of constraints and parameters it is too complicated. In this paper، a new method based on artificial bee colony algorithm has been proposed to solve the problem of unit commitment. In the proposed method، a novel coding approach is presented which uses integer numbers (for satisfying minimum up/down time constraints) and binary numbers (for satisfying spinning reserve constraint). One of the advantages of the proposed coding approach is elimination of using penalty factors in the optimization process to constraints handling. The total cost of unit commitment can be truly minimized using the proposed algorithm. In comparison with other existing methods in this regard، the simulated results and numerical studies show better convergence of the proposed algorithm.