Constrained economic dispatch by micro genetic algorithm based on migration and merit order loading solutions

In this paper, a micro genetic algorithm based on migration and merit order loading solutions (MGAM-MOL) for solving the ramp rate constrained economic dispatch (ED) problems for combined cycle (CC) units with linear decreasing and staircase incremental cost (IC) functions is proposed. MGAM-MOL uses a merit order loading (MOL) solution as a base solution in order to reduce the micro genetic algorithm (MGA) search effort towards the optimal solution region. As transmission losses are included, the solutions are near the optimal solutions and are less expensive than those obtained from MGA, simple genetic algorithm (SGA), and MOLs especially for a large number of CC units, thereby leading to substantial fuel cost savings. Moreover, MGAM-MOL can easily facilitate the parallel implementation to reduce the computing expenses without sacrificing the quality of the solution