Hybrid SOA-SQP algorithm for dynamic economic dispatch with valve-point effects

This paper proposes a hybrid technique combining a new heuristic algorithm named seeker optimization algorithm (SOA) and sequential quadratic programming (SQP) method for solving dynamic economic dispatch problem with valve-point effects. The SOA is based on the concept of simulating the act of human searching, where the search direction is based on the empirical gradient (EG) by evaluating the response to the position changes and the step length is based on uncertainty reasoning by using a simple fuzzy rule. In this paper, SOA is used as a base level search, which can give a good direction to the optimal global region and SQP as a local search to fine tune the solution obtained from SOA. Thus SQP guides SOA to find optimal or near optimal solution in the complex search space. Two test systems i.e., 5 unit with losses and 10 unit without losses, have been taken to validate the efficiency of the proposed hybrid method. Simulation results clearly show that the proposed method outperforms the existing method in terms of solution quality. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.