Optimal load dispatch using hybrid pso technique for thermal scheduling problems

Optimal Load Dispatch (OLD) plays an important role in power system operation. The objective of Optimal Load Dispatch of electric power generation is to schedule the committed generating units outputs so as to meet the required load demand at minimum operating cost while satisfying all units and system equality and inequality constraints. This paper presents a new optimization approach to solve the Optimal Load Dispatch (OLD) problems with power flow constraints. The proposed Hybrid PSO method employs PSO combined with EP technique. In this approach the best features of both PSO and EP are incorporated. The proposed method, PSO and EP have been tested on IEEE 14, IEEE 118 and 66 Bus Utility System. The results clearly shows that the proposed method outperforms standard PSO method and EP method on the same problem and can save considerable cost of Optimal Load Dispatch problems and this proposed method is well suitable for large and practical systems.