Application of Bat Evolutionary Algorithm in Optimization of Economic Dispatch for Unit-Commitment Problem with Large Uncertainties and High Efficiency

In the recent years, unit commitment (UC) has been increasingly directed towards improving the quality of power to satisfy the customers’ demand at a minimum cost. As a result, minimizing the cost function of the unit commitment problem has become a challenge for many research studies while assuring the power availability in distribution systems. In this paper, the new Bat Algorithm (BA) as an evolutionary algorithm is proposed to minimize the unit commitment cost function and to decrease the fluctuation of power in the distribution system. The cost function employs constraints including spinning reserve and generator ramp rate in addition to commonly used load balance, power limits, etc. Simulation studies on a 10-unit distribution system shows significant improvement in the convergence speed and minimum calculated cost when compared to the available methods