ECONOMIC DISPATCH ALGORITHMS FOR THERMAL UNIT SYSTEM INVOLVING COMBINED CYCLE UNITS

The economic dispatch (ED) function allo- cates total demand among the available generating units to minimize the total generation cost. Cost curves of conven- tional thermal units can be modeled as convex functions. Equal incremental cost is criterial to solve the traditional ED problem. Economic dispatch involving combined cycle units is a non-convex optimization that cannot be handled by traditional equal incremental cost criterion. This paper discusses several techniques to solve this problem. The techniques considered include Complete Enumeration (CE), Merit Order Loading (MOL), Genetic Algorithm (GA) and a proposed Hybrid Technique (HT). This hy- brid technique is not only feasible but it is also relatively fast to find ED solution for thermal unit system including Combined Cycle Units. This work includes the use of muta- tion prediction to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of Genetic Algorithm (GA). This paper includes the results for a test case based on a sample utility data set.