A two-layer algorithm based on PSO for solving unit commitment problem

It is well known that electric generators consume huge amounts of energy every year. Nowadays, research for the unit commitment problem (UCP) has become a very important task in a power plant. However, the existing optimal methods for solving UCP are very easy to fall into local optimum, resulting in poor performance. Moreover, as no separate layering of economic load distribution, the existing algorithms are very inefficient. Toward this end, a new algorithm named improved simulated annealing particle swarm optimization (ISAPSO) is proposed in this paper. The proposed algorithm consists of a two-layer structure which is designed to simplify the complex problem of UCP. Specifically, in the upper layer, the algorithm based on elitist strategy PSO and SA is much easier to jump out of the local optimum when solving UCP and thus gets a better solution. In the lower layer, convex optimization approach is used to improve the search efficiency of ISAPSO. Furthermore, several methods are also designed to solve the problem-related constraints, which can save a lot of computing resources. Finally, the experimental results show that the cost performance of ISAPSO is better than that of the existing algorithms.