A solution to unit commitment problem using Invasive Weed Optimization algorithm

This paper proposes a new solution to effectively determine Unit Commitment and generation cost (UC) using the technique of Invasive Weed Optimization (IWO). The existing technique distributes the load demand among all the generating units. The method proposed here utilizes the output of Unit Commitment obtained through Lagrangian Relaxation (LR) method and calculates the required generation from only the plants that are ON discarding the OFF generator units and thereby giving a faster and more accurate response. Moreover, the results show the comparison between LR-Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and LR-IWO and proving that the cost of generation for an 8 hour 4 unit schedule is much lesser in case of IWO when compared to PSO.