Economic dispatch of chiller plant by improved ripple bee swarm optimization algorithm for saving energy

This paper presents an improved ripple bee swarm optimization (IRBSO) algorithm to solve the problem of the economic dispatch of chiller plants (EDCP). Using the characteristics of biological communities, different movement models are adopted to search within the feasible solution space. This paper uses nonlinear ripple weight factors and self-adaption repulsion factor to improve the BSO and proposes the influence of parameters on the IRBSO method to more effectively search the feasible space. For all bee swarms, the efficiency of searching movement in the solution space improves, and the capacity of information discovery and mining increases. This paper utilizes the test cases to verify the proposed IRBSO, including EDCP problems for a single day and a single week. Compared with other methods, the results of the proposed IRBSO exhibit higher accuracy and stability, making it suitable for the operation planning of multiple chiller systems. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.