A New Heuristic Approach for Unit Commitment Problem Using Particle Swarm Optimization.

In this paper, a new method is proposed to solve unit commitment problem using particle swarm optimization. This method limits the search space considering demand information and the generation history of the generating units to solve the UC problem in an hourly basis. An expert system is utilized to generate the search space combinations of the generating units and a particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to optimize generation levels according to each combination. The results are more accurate and get lower operation costs in comparison with other traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]