Simulated annealing approach for solving economic load dispatch problems with valve point loading effects

This paper presents Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm for optimization inspired by the process of annealing in thermodynamics to solve economic load dispatch (ELD) problems. The proposed approach is found to provide optimal results while working with operating constraints in the ELD and valve point loadings effects. In order to prove the robustness of the algorithm it is investigated on four different standard test cases consisting of 3, 13, 40 generating unit system with valve point effect and a Crete Island system of 18 thermal generating units having convex fuel cost characteristics. The proposed method has been compared with other existing relevant approaches available in literatures. Experimental results support to justify superiority of the approach over other reported techniques in terms of fast convergence, robustness and most significantly its optimal search behavior.