A comparative study of economic load dispatch with complex non-linear constraints using salp swarm algorithm

Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) is an important part of cost minimization procedure in power system operation. Different derivative and probabilistic methods are used to solve ELD problems. This paper proposes a powerful Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA) to explain the ELD issue including equality and inequality restrictions. The main aim of ELD is to satisfy the entire electric load at minimum cost. The SSA is a population based probabilistic method which guides its search agents that are randomly placed in the search space, towards an optimal point using their fitness function and also keeps a track of the best solution achieved by each search agent. SSA is being used to solve the ELD problem with their high exploration and local optima escaping technique. This algorithm confirms that the promising areas of the search space are exploited to have a smooth transition from exploration to exploitation using the movement of Salps in the sea. Simulation results prove that the proposed algorithm surpasses other existing optimization techniques in terms quality of solution obtained and computational efficiency. The final results also prove the robustness of the SSA.