Economic dispatch in power system networks including renewable energy resources using various optimization techniques

Economic dispatch (ED) is an essential part of any power system network. ED is how to schedule the real power outputs from the available generators to get the minimum cost while satisfying all constraints of the network. Moreover, it may be explained as allocating generation among the committed units with the most effective minimum way in accordance with all constraints of the system. There are many traditional methods for solving ED, e.g., Newton-Raphson method Lambda-Iterative technique, Gaussian-Seidel method, etc. All these traditional methods need the generators’ incremental fuel cost curves to be increasing linearly. But practically the input-output characteristics of a generator are highly non-linear. This causes a challenging non-convex optimization problem. Recent techniques like genetic algorithms, artificial intelligence, dynamic programming and particle swarm optimization solve nonconvex optimization problems in a powerful way and obtain a rapid and near global optimum solution. In addition, renewable energy resources as wind and solar are a promising option due to the environmental concerns as the fossil fuels reserves are being consumed and fuel price increases rapidly and emissions are getting higher. Therefore, the world tends to replace the old power stations into renewable ones or hybrid stations. In this paper, it is attempted to enhance the operation of electrical power system networks via economic dispatch. An ED problem is solved using various techniques, e.g., Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique and Sine-Cosine Algorithm (SCA). Afterwards, the results are compared. Moreover, case studies are executed using a photovoltaic-based distributed generator with constant penetration level on the IEEE 14 bus system and results are observed. All the analyses are performed on MATLAB software.