Short-term unit consignment solution using real-coded grey wolf algorithm

Abstract

This paper presents a new real-coded grey wolf optimization (RCGWO) algorithm for power system unit commitment (UC). RCGWO is an expansion of the grey wolf algorithm. This appears to be potential for solving the UC. The fitness function is constructed from the total operating cost of the generating units. Here, the scheduling variables are coded as real variables. Therefore, the minimum up/down time constraints can be handled directly. Different test case contains 3 units, 38 units, 10 units and multiples of 10 units (large scale system) are presented. The most important advantage of the proposed method is highly robust and good convergence. The proposed algorithm shows competitive performance with the best of the other methods reported for the past two decades.