Parameter study of differential evolution based optimal scheduling of hydrothermal systems

Differential evolution (DE) has been proved to be a powerful evolutionary algorithm for global optimization in many real-world problems. The performance of evolutionary algorithms is heavily dependent on the setting of control parameters. Proper selection of the control parameters is very important for the success of the algorithm. Optimal settings of control parameters of differential evolution depend on the specific problem under consideration. In this paper, a study of control parameters on differential evolution based optimal scheduling of hydrothermal systems with cascaded reservoir is conducted empirically. A multi-reservoir cascaded hydrothermal system with non-linear relationship between water discharge rate, power generation and net head is considered for the present study. The water transport delay between connected reservoirs is also taken into account. Several equality and non-equality constraints on thermal plants such as maximum and minimum generation capacity and effect of valve point loading are also considered. The results of the effect of the variations of the parameters are presented systematically and it is observed that the search algorithm may fail in finding the optimal value if the parameter selection is not done with proper attention.

► Parameter study DE based hydrothermal scheduling systems is performed.
► All the three control parameters of DE i.e. NP, fm and CR are investigated.
► Results are presented systematically.
► It is seen that premature convergence can occur due to wrong parameter selection.