Application of Firefly Algorithm for Combined Economic Load and Emission Dispatch

Abstract

This paper presents an application of Firefly algorithm for multi-objective optimization problem in power system. By economic load scheduling the generations of different plants can be determined such that the total operating cost is minimum. Considering the environmental impacts that grow from the emissions produced by fossil fuelled power plant, the economic dispatch that minimizes only the total fuel cost can no longer be considered as single objective. Application of Firefly algorithm in this paper is based on mathematical modelling to solve combined economic and emissions dispatch problems by a single equivalent objective function. Firefly algorithm has been applied to two realistic systems at different load conditions. Results obtained with proposed method are compared with other techniques presented in literature. Firefly algorithm is easy to implement and much superior to other algorithms in terms of accuracy and efficiency.