FIXED HEAD SHORT TERM HYDRO THERMAL GENERATION SCHEDULING USING DIFFERENTIAL EVOLUTION

Abstract

The short term hydrothermal scheduling (STHTS), is a daily planning proposition in power system operation. The main purpose of hydro thermal generation scheduling is to minimize the overall operation cost and to satisfy the given constraints by scheduling optimally the power outputs of all hydro and thermal units under study periods, given electrical load and limited water resource.  In this paper differential evolution (DE) based algorithm is proposed, implemented and compared with real variable genetic algorithm (RVGA) for solving the hydrothermal scheduling problem considering valve point loading for fixed head hydro-thermal problem. Also, hydro power input-output model with constant head has been developed for Sewa hydro electric power plant by using the curve fitting technique namely least square method. The control parameters of real-variable genetic algorithm and differential evolution have been optimized for the considered case study. From the simulation results, it is found that the DE based approach is able to provide a higher quality solution at a comparatively lesser computational effort.