GMSARN International Journal
This paper proposes an improved cuckoo search algorithm (ICSA) for optimizing the operation of thermal power plants and hydrothermal power plants in a cascaded system. The major purpose of the problem is to reduce the total electricity generation cost of thermal power plants thank the most appropriate water discharge from hydropower plants in the cascaded system. The proposed ICSA method together with its original method, cuckoo search algorithm (CCSA) and another modified version, modified cuckoo search algorithm (MCSA) are implemented for two systems in which the second system considers valve effects on thermal units during the operation process. Different settings to iterations are tried to survey the improvement of ICSA over CSA and MCSA, and results are also compared to other existing methods. The proposed method can reach a lower cost but its search procedure is faster for the two systems. Consequently, ICSA is a powerful method for the optimal operation of the hydrothermal systems with cascaded reservoirs.
