Cultural Algorithm Based Short-Term Scheduling of Hydrothermal Power Systems

A novel approach for short-term hydrothermal power systems with cascaded reservoirs using cultural algorithm (CA) is presented in this paper. The large scale hydrothermal scheduling involves optimization of a non-linear objective function with a set of system and hydraulic constraints. The approach takes the water transport delay time between connected reservoirs and complicated hydraulic coupling into accounted, the cost characteristics of individual thermal units are also considered. The cultural algorithm combined with a novel equality constraint handing mechanism provides better solution at a lesser computational effort. The developed algorithm is illustrated for a test system consisting of four hydro plants and three thermal plants. The test results are compared with those of improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) technique. It is found that the CA approach is able to provide better solution in term of fuel cost and computational effort.