2012 Fourth International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Communication Networks

Genetic Algorithm Solution for A Convex Hydro-Thermal Generation Scheduling

Vimal Singh Bisht #1, Gautam Shah*2 Nikhil Kushwaha**3, Vaibhav Gupta**4
#
Electrical Engineering Department, Graphic Era Hill University
Bhimtal (U.K.) India
1
bishtvimal@yahoo.com
*
Instrumentation and Control Engineering Department, Graphic Era University
Dehradun (U.K.) India
2
gautam.shah8@gmail.com
** Electrical Engineering Department, N.I.T Hamirpur,(H.P) India
3
nikhil.kushwaha85@gmail.com
4
vaibhavele.nith@gmail.com

Abstract— The paper proposes a Genetic Algorithm solution
for solving a short term hydro thermal scheduling problem.
The scheduling has been done for a period of twenty four
hours. The algorithm is first applied on hydro plants for
calculating hydro generation and then on thermal units for
calculating economic load dispatch among the given units. The
various constraints like load balancing, thermal and hydro
generation limits, initial/final volume and discharge from the
hydro reservoir are taken in to consideration .The algorithm
has been demonstrated on a hydro-thermal system and has
effectively taken care of all the constraints which has helped in
removing the penalty factors from the problem. The
parameters that affect the performance of Genetic Algorithm
are discussed and the theoretical background of the method
has been presented. The optimal cost based on the Genetic
algorithm has been calculated for the given hydro thermal
system generators.
Keywords— Short-term hydrothermal scheduling, genetic
algorithm, Constraint-handling, economic load dispatch,
economic operation of power system.
I. INTRODUCTION
With advancement in technology in today’s modern era
power system has evolved up with lot many possibilities.
Today’s modern power system consist a huge network of
interconnected generating power station irrespective of their
mode of generation. The main objective behind
interconnection of power system is to supply the load
demand at a minimum cost, maintaining the system
reliability and security of power system. Hydrothermal
scheduling is one such kind of operation by which we can
supply the load demand minimizing the cost of generation.
Hydrothermal scheduling problem can be divided in to two
parts, one as a long term hydro thermal scheduling and other
as a short term scheduling problem. Long term scheduling
problem are consider for a larger period of study ranging
from 1 week to 1 year. The main difficulty with such type of
scheduling is that it is very difficult to predict the flows of
water in river for such a long period. This uncertainty in
flows makes long term scheduling a difficult task. Whereas
short term scheduling problem is free from such constraint
as the range of scheduling period lies from a day to a week.
With new emerging trends in artificial computational
techniques it is now very much possible to solve real world
complex problem in a quick time with reliable results.
Hydro-thermal scheduling is one such area where artificial
computational techniques have given reliable results. The
paper focuses on a Genetic Algorithm approach for solving
a convex scheduling problem. A simple genetic algorithm
has been applied to the hydro thermal system consisting of 6
thermal and 4 hydro generating units. The power generation
limits, load balancing, initial/final volume of hydro
reservoirs and discharge limit of hydro reservoir are the
constraints that the problem has to take care of.
II. GENETIC ALGORITHM
Genetic algorithms are the general purpose optimization
tools inspired out of natural living nature. Genetic algorithm
lies in the categories of most widely used evolutionary
algorithms. In the last decade, approaches based on genetic
algorithms (GA) have received large attention from both
academic and industrial communities for dealing
optimization problems that have been shown to be
intractable using conventional problem solving approaches
[5,6,7,8,9,10,11] . The algorithm operates on the set of
strings called as chromosomes which are made up of genes.
These chromosomes together form population in GA. At the
run of algorithm the size of population is decided randomly,
generally it depends on the experience of programmer.
Every individual in the chromosome is characterized by a
set of parameters called as Genes. These Genes constitutes
of all the necessary information regarding the encoding or
value encoding. The choice of encoding depends up on the
type of problem. Among the three encoding schemes the
binary encoding scheme is mostly used. Working of a
genetic algorithm can be understood very clearly from
figure 1.
The competition process is based on the fitness value of
the individual. The one having higher value of fitness is

978-0-7695-4850-0/12 $26.00 © 2012 IEEE 646

DOI 10.1109/CICN.2012.120

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taken in to the next generation and the one with the lower
value of fitness are discarded. Selection is applied on the
entire population after the competition. Roulette wheel and
tournament are the two popular selection methods. One’s
selection is completed reproduction operators are applied on
a, b, c Cost Coefficient of Thermal generation.
C1 − C6 Generation Coefficient for Hydro Generation.
N gt Total number of thermal unit in the system.
N gh Total number of hydro unit in the system.

B. Hydro Power Generation Characteristics

Hydro power generation is purely the function of water
discharge (Q) and volume (V) of the reservoir. Different
models have been proposed; this article uses the same
relationship as in Esteban et al. [2].
Figure 1 Darwinian paradigm

the entire survivor’s. The probability of these operators
depends up on the user and cannot have a zero value. After
reproduction again competition occurs among the newly
generated population and the cycle goes on till any of the
specified constraints are met.
III. PROBLEM FORMULATION
A hydro thermal scheduling problem is all about
minimizing the thermal generation cost by making use of
hydro generation. The problem of minimizing the operating
cost of the system can be viewed as one of minimizing the
fuel cost of thermal plants under the constraints of water
availability (storage and inflow) for hydro generation over a
given period of operation.
Cost function for thermal unit is given as [1]
Fk ( Ptkl ) = ak + bk ( Ptkl ) + ck ( ptkl ) 2 (1)
Where ak, bk, ck, are the cost function coefficients ($/h,
$/MWh, $/MW2h); Ptkl is the power generated by the ith
thermal unit at time t (MW); Fi (·) is the cost of production
of the ith thermal unit at time t ($/h).
Thus our objective function is to minimize:
Phij = C1i (Vhij ) + C2i (Qhij ) 2 + C3i (Vhij )(Qhij )
+ C 4 i (Vhij ) + C5 i (Qhij ) + C 6 i (2)
Where C1, i. . . C6, i are the hydraulic power generation
coefficients. Based on the value of Hydro Generation (Phij)
thermal generation has to be scheduled accordingly to meet
the total demand.
C. Constraints
The following presents the counted constraints within
the HTSP formulation:
1. Balancing the Load: The total power generated by hydro
and thermal generating units should meet the total demand
and losses.
Pt + Ph = Pdemand + Ploss
In the paper losses are not considered, So the constraint
Takes the form of:
Pt + Ph = Pdemand
2 .Hydro Generation limit: Power Generated by Hydro
generation should lie in between min. and max. Limit of the
generations.

T Ng Ph (min) ≤ ( Ph ) ≤ Ph (max)
¦¦ F ( P
t =1 k =1
k tkl ) 3. Thermal Generation limit: Power generated by Thermal
generation should lie in between min. and max. Limit of the
generation.
A. Nomenclature Pt (min) ≤ ( Pt ) ≤ Pt (max)
th 4. Hydro Reservoir Volume: As the reservoir storage
Pdj Power Demand for the J hour.
Volume is limited, so account of available volume of water
Phij Hydro power generated by I th reservoir in J th has to be kept for every hour. Volume should always lie in
time Interval. between specified limits.
Ptkl Thermal Power generated by K th thermal unit Vhij (min) ≤ (Vhij ) ≤ Vhij (max)
in time Interval. 5. Hydro Reservoir Discharge: similar to the volume of
reservoir its discharge should also lie in between specified
Vhij Volume of I th reservoir at J th time interval. limits.
Qhij Water discharge from I th unit at J th interval. Qhij (min) ≤ (Qhij ) ≤ Qhij (max)
Fk Thermal generation cost for K th unit.

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 IV GENETIC ALGORITHM SOLUTION Roulette wheel criterion. According to this selection
The general scheme of the genetic algorithm for short- criterion method one having more value of fitness has
term hydrothermal scheduling is summarized as follows: greater chance of selection.
1. Population Initialization: Initializing the Population is
4. Crossover and Mutation Operators:
a most important step for Genetic Algorithm approach. Here
each individual in the population represents discharge from (a) Crossover: Crossover is a genetic operator that
the reservoir for every hour. The initial population is combines (mates) two chromosomes (parents) to
generated with individuals whose phenotype is represented produce a new chromosome (offspring). There are
in matrix form with dimension T × N gh genes. Here T many crossover techniques like one-point, two-
point, Uniform, half uniform crossover, etc.
represents total time period for which scheduling has to be generally the probability of cross over is taken as
done and N gh is the total number of available hydro units. 0.7.
(b) Mutation: Mutation is used to maintain genetic
TABLE I diversity from one generation to the next. It helps
DISCHARGE REPRESENTATION FOR HYDRO UNITS
to prevent the population from stagnating at any
Unit 1 Unit 2 Unit 3 … Unit N local optima. Different types of mutation are flip
Hour 1 100..011 001..001 101..101 000..101 bit, boundary, uniform, non-uniform, etc. generally
Hour 2 000..110 110..111 000..001 000..110 the probability of Mutation is taken as 0.001.
Hour 3 010..111 111..001 000..010 000..111 Mutation probability is kept so that result does not
……… ……… ………… ………… … ………… get converged at local points.
…… … .
Hour 110..001 111..011 000..100 011..011 5. Stopping Criterion: Stopping criterion depends on the
T choice of individual. There are various criterions for
stopping the algorithm: a) Maximum number of generations
1.1 Number of bits required: Bits should be clearly able to reached, b) Consistency in the result c) experience of
represents the discharge. To calculate the number of individual related to the problem. The process can be
bits required we make use of formula [4] stopped if any one of the three stopping criterion is met.

2bit _ reqdh −1 < (Qh max − Qh min ) × prec ≤ 2bit _ reqdh −1
Where prec. = 10number of decimal place accuracy required
2. Fitness function: fitness function for the scheduling
problem is minimization of the thermal generation cost. The
fuel cost/power output characteristics of the composite
thermal plant is represented by [3], [15].
(3) V PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
The problem consists of 6 thermal unit and 4 hydro units.
Load demand and other data for the problem are given from
Table. II to Table IV show the demand pattern, generation,
volume, discharge limit of hydro reservoir power generation
coefficients of the hydraulic unit.
TABLE II
HYDRO GENERATION, VOLUME AND DISCHARGE LIMITS

FK ( Ptk ) = 5000 + 19.2 × ( Ptk ) Plant Vmin Vmax Qmin Qmax Pmin Pmax
1 55 150 5 15 0 500
+0.002 × ( Pdemand − Phj ) 2 (4) 2 60 120 6 15 0 500
Where Ptk, the thermal generation is given by 3 100 240 10 30 0 500
4 70 160 13 25 0 500
Ptk = Pdemand − Phj
TABLE III
Therefore the equation (1) becomes HYDRO POWER GENERATION COEFFICIENTS
FK ( Ptk ) = 5000 + 19.2 × ( Pdemand − Phj ) Unit C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6
1 -0.0042 -0.42 0.03 0.9 10 -50
+0.002 × ( Pdemand − Phj ) 2
(5)
2 -0.004 -0.3 0.015 1.14 9.5 -70
3 -0.0016 -0.3 0.014 0.55 .55 -40
Now equation (2) becomes our final fitness function that 4 -0.003 -0.31 0.027 1.44 14 -90
has to be minimized.
Limits for thermal and hydro generation should be with the
3. Selection mechanism: Ones the fitness of the individual range specified as:
has been calculated Selection process is carried out. 500 ≤ Pt ≤ 2500
Selection totally depends up on the fitness value of
individual. All those having higher fitness take part in 0 ≤ Ph ≤ 500
selection. Selection method applied in this problem is

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Where Pt and Ph are in Mw.

TABLE IV
GENERATION LIMITS OF THERMAL GENNERATION UNITS
Unit Mw Unit Mw Unit Mw
1 180-500 3 150-455 5 25-162
2 180-500 4 45-255 6 20-88

Table IV shows the limits within which thermal generating

units have to generate, meeting the demand and losses of the
system.

VI RESULTS
The problem is implemented in MATLAB 7.9.0.529 Fig. 2 Hydro discharges (104 mm3 )
(R2009b) license number 161051. Genetic Algorithm
parameters are taken as [POP. Size=20, Pmut=.001, Pc.o=0.8]
Selection criterion applied is Roulette Wheel, crossover and
mutation applied are of uniform and scattered type
respectively. Table V and Table VI show hydro generation
for all the 4 hydro units and economic dispatch of remaining
Mw through 6 thermal generating units respectively. It can
be seen that all the plants are generating well within their
limits, satisfying all the constraints involved with the
problem.

TABLE V
HYDRO GENERATION OF HYDRO PLANTS
Hours PH1 PH2 PH3 PH4 Pd Fig. 3 Hydro reservoir storage volume
1 182.96 44.83 130.06 309.79 1370
2 155.21 46.87 194.25 204.5 1390
3 161.96 56.06 78.14 223.33 1360
4 184.88 71.36 86.53 288.1 1290
5 181.58 73.54 87.85 331.3 1290
6 189.97 102.96 83.28 220.44 1410
7 197.07 44.8 68.36 203.25 1650
8 179.36 50.4 80 363.12 2000
9 116.77 58.11 229.33 306.99 2240
10 125.45 44.82 71.74 310.7 2320
11 99.42 46.71 73.94 305.15 2230
12 186.06 98.67 128.3 210.8 2310
13 187.62 69.76 108.59 263.2 2230
14 159.97 69.87 86.93 208.52 2200 Fig. 4 Demand and corresponding hydro & thermal generation
15 97.31 68.68 85.05 421.5 2130 Fig.2 shows the hydro discharge from the reservoirs Q1,
16 113.96 83.48 65.13 198.8 2070 Q2, Q3 and Q4. Fig. 3 shows the hydro reservoir storage
17 181.4 90.07 73.08 348.08 2130
volume V1, V2, V3 and V4 for the 24 hours period. Fig.4
18 195.92 54.2 65 204.07 2140 shows the demand, thermal generation and hydro generation
19 180.29 133.31 75.39 215.12 2240
in Mw. Table VI gives the economic generation scheduled
20 184.74 54.18 105.65 389.67 2280 of the thermal units using GA. Based on these values of
21 75.42 45.58 66.32 199.17 2240 generation the total cost is calculated. The total cost for 24
22 187.09 116.92 65.13 215.62 2120 hours generation scheduling came out to be $ 822092.1
23 169.1 125.42 92.2 204.47 1850
24 172.72 96.53 76.09 355.99 1590

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