Solving Unit Commitment Using Priority Assisted Firefly Algorithm

Abstract

The unit commitment is a complex power system problem and it is aimed towards scheduling the most cost effective combination of units with the objective of minimizing the total operating cost incurred. The complexity increases further with the account of startup cost, which depends on the duration for which the unit was down. This work proposes implementation of Priority Assisted Firefly Algorithm for solving unit commitment problem. Firefly algorithm is a meta-heuristic, nature inspired, swarm intelligence based algorithm. The algorithm applied is centered around the idea that by prioritising the units based on cost parameter prior to implementation of firefly algorithm, improvement in both computational effort and the total operating cost incurred is achieved. The proposed algorithm is applied to two systems comprising three generating units and twelve generating units for a scheduling period of 24 hours. A comparative study is done using other reported results.