Hybrid PSO ? ACO technique to solve economic load dispatch problem

Economic load dispatch (ELD) is an operational planning of a power generation system whereby the demand load is optimally distributed among the generation units such that the total generation cost is minimized. This paper presents a new hybrid technique, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) combined with Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), to solve the ELD problem. The results of simulated test run of the technique for optimum distribution of load in 6-generator systems while minimizing transmission loss have been reported in this paper. The results obtained using PSO-ACO are found to be encouraging when compared with that produced by other hybrid methods under similar test condition.