Investigations on bacteria foraging algorithm for power system optimization

Abstract

The primary sources of electrical energy in our country are coal newlinebased thermal power stations and the hydro electric power stations. The main newlineobjective of the electric power utilities is to provide high quality reliable newlinepower supply to the consumers at the least possible cost. In order to achieve newlinethis objective, the power engineers have to sort out the problems associated newlinewith Indian power industry and the issues related to all such problems should newlinebe addressed technically. The important problems associated with the Indian power industry newlineare the profit based unit commitment problem with environmental constraints, newlineemission and economic dispatch problems such as economic load dispatch, newlineemission dispatch, combined economic and emission dispatch and emission newlineconstrained economic dispatch, economic dispatch with combined cycle newlinecogeneration plant and the short term hydrothermal co-ordination with newlineprohibited operating zones. The profit based unit commitment problem with newlineenvironmental constraints is a multi objective optimization problem with the newlineobjectives of maximizing the profit and minimizing the emission. The newlineeconomic load dispatch finds the optimal power output of all the generating newlineunits at a particular hour such that the total fuel cost is minimum provided all newlinethe system constraints are satisfied. Due to the Clean Air Act Amendments of newline1990 (CAAA) and the Kyoto protocol, the thermal power generating utilities newlinehave to abide by the emission limits. The problem of combined economic and emission dispatch deals with the minimization of both fuel cost and emission newlineof pollutants such as oxides of Nitrogen and oxides of Sulphur. The emission newlineconstrained economic dispatch problem treats the emission limit as an newlineadditional constraint and optimizes the fuel cost. newlineThe presence of combined cycle cogeneration plants in the newlineeconomic load dispatch solution needs the additional efforts due to the newlinenon-smooth fuel cost characteristics.