Abstract: The Economic power dispatch problem is one of the most important problems to be solved in the operations of
power system. It is basically a non-linear optimization problem having linear and non-linear equality and inequality
constraints. This is a real time problem for properly allocating the real power output among the committed generators such
that fuel cost is minimized while the demand requirement is met and the constraints imposed are satisfied. This paper presents
a seeker optimisation algorithm (SOA) for the solution of the constrained economic load dispatch (ELD) problems in
different power systems considering various non-linear characteristics of generators. In the SOA, the act of human searching
capability and understanding are exploited for the purpose of optimisation. In this algorithm, the search direction is based on
empirical gradient by evaluating the response to the position changes and the step length is based on uncertainty reasoning
by using a simple fuzzy rule. ELD is solved for two typical test cases of 20 generator and 40-generator cases. A comparison of
simulation results reveals the optimisation efficacy of the SOA over the prevailing optimisation techniques for the solution of
ELD problems.
Keywords: Economic Load Dispatch, heuristic algorithm, power system, seeker optimisation algorithm