Bacteria Foraging Based Algorithm for Optimum Economic Load Dispatch with Non-convex Loads

Nidul Sinha1, Senior Member IEEE, Devaprasad Paul2, Bir Bahadur Singh2, Manabendra Barua2, Yatin Chauhan2
Abstract--An algorithm based on Bacteria Foraging (BF) was developed to solve the problem of finding the optimum load allocation amongst the committed units in power system with non-convex loads. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated on a test case of 15 units. The performance of the algorithm is compared with floating point genetic algorithm (FPGA) with optimum parameters. In addition, the BF algorithm is evaluated with and without swarming effect. Results demonstrate that the performance of the BF algorithm is far better than FPGA algorithm in terms of convergence rate and solution quality. BF algorithm with swarming effect proves to be more efficient as compared to that without swarming. Index TermsBacterial Foraging, Floating point Genetic Algorithm, Economic Load dispatch.

I. INTRODUCTION Economic load dispatch (ELD) in electric power system is the optimum allocation of load amongst the committed generating units subject to satisfaction of the constraints. Most of the conventional classical dispatch algorithms, like lambda-iteration method, base point and participation factors method, and the gradient method [1], [2] are gradient based methods and hence, cannot tackle the nonconvexity well. These algorithms usually approximate the characteristics as quadratic ones to meet the their requirements. However, such approximations may result into huge loss of revenue over the time. In addition, they have the tendency of easily getting trapped in local minima. And most of the modern practical thermal units do have highly nonlinear input-output characteristics because of valve point loadings prohibiting operating zones etc resulting in multiple local minima in the cost function. The solution of multimodal optimization problems like ELD demands for solution methods, which have no restrictions on the shape of the fuel cost curves. Though enumerative method like dynamic programming (DP) [1] is capable of solving ELD problems with inherently nonlinear and discontinuous cost curves but proves to suffer from intensive mathematical computations and memory requirement. With nonlinear and nondifferentiable objective functions, modern heuristic search approaches are the methods of choice. The best known of these are genetic algorithm (GA) [3]-[11], evolutionary strategy (ES) [12], [13], evolutionary programming (EP) [13]-[21], simulated annealing (SA) [3], [22], particle swarm optimization (PSO) [23]-[25], and differential evolution (DE) [26]-[27]. At the heart of every direct search method is a strategy that creates new solutions and some criterion to
1

accept or reject the new solutions. While doing this all basic direct search methods use some greedy criteria. One of the greedy criteria is to accept a new solution if and only if it reduces the value of the objective function (in case of minimization) and the other may be forcing to create more new solutions nearer to already found better solutions. Although the greedy decision process converges fairly fast, it runs the risk of getting trapped in a local minimum. Inherently all parallel search techniques like genetic and evolutionary algorithms have some built-in safeguards like exploration to forestall misconvergence. Though simulated annealing [3], [22] is reported to have performed better in solving non-linear ELD problems, the main drawback of SA is the difficulty in determining an appropriate annealing schedule, otherwise the solution achieved may still be a locally optimal one. Recent trends in research, therefore, have been directed towards use of evolutionary algorithms (EAs) i.e. GA, ES and EP, which are based on the simulated evolutionary process of natural selection and genetics. EAs are more flexible and robust than conventional calculus based methods. Due to its high potential for global optimization, GA has received great attention in solving ELD problems. Walters and Sheble [4] reported a GA model that employed units output as the encoded parameter of chromosome to solve an ELD problem with valve-point discontinuities. To enhance the performance of GA, Yalcinoz et al. [10] have proposed the real-coded representation scheme, arithmetic crossover, mutation, and elitism in the GA to solve more efficiently the ELD problem, and it can obtain a high-quality solution with less computation time. BFA has been recently proposed [28] and further applied to: harmonic estimation problem in power systems [29], optimize both real power loss and voltage stability Limit [30] and optimize active power filter for load compensation [31]. The algorithm is based on the foraging behavior of E. coli bacteria present in human intestine. The objective is the minimization of the total production cost over the scheduling horizon while the constraints must be satisfied during the optimization process. BFA includes most of the features like chamotaxis, swarming, reproduction, elimination, and dispersal of improved modern heuristic search methods, which make the algorithm very promising. Very few works are reported on the performance of BF algorithm on highly nonlinear power system problems. And the recent reported impressive performance of BFA on benchmark mathematical functions have induced us in applying this method on highly nonlinear ELD problems. In view of the above, the main objectives of the present work are: (i) To develop a program based on BF algorithm to solve the non-convex ELD problem.

Nidul Sinha is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, NIT, Silchar, Assam, India-788010, (email:nidulsinha@rediffmail.com). 2 All are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, NIT, Silchar, Assam.

(ii) To compare the performance of the algorithm on the same problem with that of recent FPGA method. (iii) To investigate into the performance of the algorithm with swarming as well as without swarming on the same problem. II. BACTERIAL FORAGING ALGORITHM (BFA) The idea of foraging under BFA is based on the fact that natural selection tends to eliminate animals with poor foraging strategies and favour those having successful foraging strategies. After many generations, poor foraging strategies are either eliminated or reshaped into good ones. The E. coli bacteria that are present in our intestines have a foraging strategy governed by four processes, namely, chemotaxis, swarming, reproduction, and elimination and dispersal [28]. A. Chemotaxis: This process is achieved through swimming and tumbling. Depending upon the rotation of the flagella, the bacterium decides what direction it should move (tumbling) and if the new location of bacterium after movement is better, the bacterium will continue to swim in the same previous direction (swimming) for a specific number of steps. Suppose that we want to find the minimum of J(), Rp. Assume that is the position of a bacterium and J ( ) represents the amount of the food at the position J()<0, J()=0, and J()>0 representing that the bacterium at location is in nutrient-rich, neutral, and noxious environments, respectively. To represent a tumble, a unit length random direction, say (i) , is generated. This will be used to define the direction of movement after a tumble. In particular i (j+1, k, l ) = i ( j, k, l ) + C(i) (i) (1) where i(j, k, l) represents the ith bacterium at jth chemotactic, kth reproductive, and lth elimination and dispersal step. C(i) is the step-size taken in random direction specified by the tumble. If at i (j+1, k, l), the cost of J (i, j, k, l) is lower than at i(j, k, l), then another step of size C(i) in the direction (i) will be taken and bacterium will begin to swim in the direction (i) . This swim is continued as long as it continues to reduce the cost, but only up to a maximum number of steps, Ns. This represents that the cell will tend to keep moving if it is headed in the direction of increasingly favorable environments. B. Swarming: It is always desired that the bacterium that has searched the optimum path of food should try to attract other bacteria so that they reach the desired place more rapidly. Swarming makes the bacteria congregate into groups and hence move as concentric patterns of groups with high bacterial density. Let P( j k l ) = { i (j, k, l)| i = 1,2,..., S}. Mathematically, swarming can be represented by:
s s i cc s

cells will try to find nutrients, avoid noxious substances, and at the same time try to move toward other cells, but not too close to them. S is the total number of bacteria. p is the number of parameters to be optimized that are presented in each bacterium position. dattract, wattract, hrepelent, and wrepelent are different coefficients that are to be chosen judiciously. C. Reproduction: Half of the total bacteria i.e. Sr = S/2 with least health die, and the comparatively remaining healthier bacteria each split into two bacteria, which is placed in the same location. This makes the population of bacteria constant and follows the natural principle of preferring better fit bacteria to survive and produce. D. Elimination and Dispersal: It is possible that in the local environment, the life of a population of bacteria changes either gradually by consumption of nutrients or suddenly due to some other influence. Events can kill or disperse all the bacteria in a region. They have the effect of possibly destroying chemotactic progress, at the same time they also have the possibility of assisting in chemotaxis, since dispersal may result into bacteria at better locations i.e. solutions.. Elimination and dispersal prevents bacteria from getting trapped in local optima. For each elimination-dispersal event each bacterium in the population is subjected to eliminationdispersal with probability ped. To keep the number of bacteria constant, if we eliminate a bacterium, simply disperse one to a random location in the optimization domain. The flowchart of the bacterial foraging algorithm is shown in Fig.1.

Fig.1 Flowchart of the Bacteria Foraging Algorithm.

J cc ( ) =

J
i =1

[-d
i =1

attract

exp( w attract ( j - ij ) 2 )]

(2) where Jcc(,P(I,j,l)), due to the movements of all the cells, is a time varying function that is added to J(i,j,k,l ) so that the
i =1

+ [h repellent exp( w repellent

- ij ) 2 )]

E. BFA Algorithm in brief: Step 1 Initialization First following variables must be chosen. 1) S: Number of bacteria to be used in the search. 2) p: Number of parameters to be optimized. 3) Ns: Swimming length. 4) Nc: Number of chemotactic steps. 5) Nre: Number of reproduction steps.

6) Ned: Number of elimination and dispersal events. 7) ped: Probability of elimination and dispersal. 8) C(i), i= 1,2,,S: unit length run for every bacterium 9) The values of dattract, attract, hrepelent and repelent 10) Initial values for the i, i= 1,2,,S Step 2Iterative algorithm for optimization 1) Elimination-dispersal loop: l=l+1 2) Reproduction loop: k=k+1 3) Chemotaxis loop: j=j+1 a) For i =1,2,,S, take a chemotactic step for bacterium i as follows. b) Compute J (i, j, k, l ). Let J (i j k l ) = J (i j k l )+ Jsw (i j k l )+Jcc(i ( j k l ),P( j k l )) (i.e., add on the cell-to-cell attractant effect for swarming behavior). c) Let Jlast = Jsw (i j k l ) to save this value since we may find a better cost via a run. d) Tumble: Generate a random vector (i) Rp with each element m (i), m= 1,2,..., p, a random number on [1,1]. e) Move: Let: (i) =(i)/ (T(i)(i))1/2 i ( j+1, k ,l )= i( j, k ,l )+ C(i) (i) This results in a step of size C(i) in the direction ofthe tumble for bacterium i. f) Compute J (i, j +1, k, l ), and then Let Jsw (i j+1, k, l) =J (I, j+1, k, l,)+Jcc (i( j+1,k, l),P( j+1, k,l)) g) Swim i) Let m = 0 (counter for swim length). ii) While m<Ns Let m=m+1. If Jsw(i, j +1, k, l) < Jlast (if doing better), Let Jlast = J(i,j+1,k,l ) and let i( j+1,k,l) = i( j,k,l) + C(i) (i) and use this i(j+1, k, l ) to compute the new J(i, j +1, k, l ) as we did in f. Else, let m = Ns. This is the end of the while statement. h) Go to the next bacterium (i+1) if i S (i.e., go to b) to process the next bacterium. 4) If j<Nc, go to step 3. In this case, continue chemotaxis, since the life of the bacteria is not over. 5) Reproduction: a) For the given k and l, and for each i=1,2,,S, let Ji health = min {J(sw)(i,j, k,l)} be the health of bacterium i. Sort bacteria in order of ascending cost Jhealth (higher cost means lower health). b) The Sr bacteria with the highest Jhealth values die and the other Sr bacteria are moved to the location with cost equal to Ji health and then split (the copies that are made are placed at the same location as their parent). 6) If k<Nre, go to step 2. In this case, we have not reached the number of specified reproduction steps, so we start the next generation in the chemotactic loop. 7) Elimination-dispersal: For i=1,2,,S, with probability ped, eliminate and disperse each bacterium. To eliminate a bacterium, simply disperse one to a random location on the optimization domain. 8) If l<Ned, then move to step 1; otherwise end.

III. ELD PROBLEM FORMULATION. The economic load dispatch problem can be described as an optimization (minimization) process with the following objective function:
J

min.F = FCj (Pj )

j =1

(3)

Where FCj (Pj) is the fuel cost function of the jth unit and Pj is the power generated by the jth unit. Subject to power balance constraints:
n

j =1

Pj

(4)

Where D is the system load demand and PL is the transmission loss, and generating capacity constrains: P j min P j P j max for j = 1,2, . n (5) Where Pjmin and Pjmax are the minimum and maximum power outputs of the jth unit. The fuel cost function of the generating units without valve point loadings are given by FC j ( P j ) = a j + b j P j + c j P j2 (6) And the fuel cost function considering valve point loadings of the generating units are given as FCj(Pj) = aj + bjPj + cjPj2 + |ej x sin (fj x (Pjmin Pj))| (7) Where aj,bj,cj are the fuel cost coefficients of the jth unit and ej and fj are the fuel cost coefficients of the jth unit with valve point effects. The generating units with multi-valve steam turbines exhibit a greater variation in the fuel cost functions. The valve-point effects introduce ripples in the heat rate curves. Now the fitness function which is the sum of production cost and penalty for constraint violation can be calculated for each individual of the parent population as

FIT i = F + PF z
z =1

Nc

(8)

and PFz = z X [VIOLz]2 IV. NUMERICAL TESTS The performance of the proposed algorithms are experimented on the test case of 15 units. The programs are developed in Matlab command line and results are obtained on a Pentium IV PC, 2.4 GHz 500 MB RAM. Table-1 shows the units data for the test case under study. Floating point GA (FPGA) features used: (i) Heuristic crossover (ii) Non-uniform mutation (iii) Normalized geometric select function The GA optimization toolbox GAOT in Matlab proposed by C.R. Houck et al. [11] is used Tuned parameters for the FPGA algorithm: Population Size = 60 Maximum Iterations = 400 Penalty multiplier = 100.

Parameters for BFA: Population Size = 60 Maximum chemotactic steps = 50 Penalty multiplier = 100. Nc = 50 Nre = 10 Ns = 6 ped = 0.25 Ned = 4 Table-1: Units data for the test case (15 units case) with load 2650MW (with valve point loadings)
Pi 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Output Limits Min Max 15 150 20 20 150 135 135 60 25 20 20 20 25 15 150 55 455 130 130 470 460 465 300 162 160 80 80 85 55 455 Fuel Coefficients a b 323.79 574.54 374.59 374.59 461.37 630.14 548.2 227.09 173.72 175.95 186.86 230.27 225.28 309.03 671.03 12.41 10.22 8.8 8.8 10.4 10.1 9.87 11.5 11.21 10.72 11.21 9.9 13.12 12.12 10.07 c 0.004447 0.000183 0.001126 0.001126 0.000205 0.000301 0.000364 0.000338 0.000807 0.001203 0.003586 0.005513 0.000371 0.001929 0.000299 e 120 300 120 120 300 300 300 200 120 120 120 120 120 120 300 f 0.077 0.035 0.077 0.077 0.035 0.035 0.035 0.042 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.077 0.035

3.466 3.464 3.462 3.46 3.458 Cost ($) 3.456 3.454 3.452 3.45 3.448 3.446

x 10

50

100

150

200 250 Generations

300

350

400

Fig. 2 The convergence nature of FPGA on the test case.

4.5 4 3.5

x 10

BFA with swarming 3 Cost ($) 2.5 BFA without swarming 2 1.5 1 0.5 0

The convergence characteristics of the FPGA and BFA algorithms are shown in Fig.2 & Fig.3 for the test case. Investigation of the figures 2 & 3 reveals that BFA algorithms both with swarming and without swarming converges faster than FPGA. BFA with swarming converges faster than that without swarming. To investigate the effects of initial trial solutions all three algorithms were run with 10 different initial trial solutions and the performance is reported in table-2. The average cost achieved in all the runs with each of the algorithm shows the capability of the algorithm in escaping local minima and find the better global solutions. Also, the lower value in the difference between maximum and minimum values further demonstrate better performance. It can be observed from the table that BFA with swarming has the least average cost amongst three and the least difference between maximum and minimum values. The performance of BFA algorithms in both forms is better than FPGA.

10

15

20 25 30 Chamotectic steps

35

40

45

50

Fig.3: The convergence nature of BFA with swarming and without swarming.

Table-2. Statistical test results of 10 runs with different initial solutions (with non-smooth cost curves) for the test case.
Method Average cost (Rs.) Maximum cost (Rs,) Minimum cost (Rs.)

FPGA BFA (without swarming) BFA (with swarming)

34131 33757 33373

34540 34084 33557

33523 33430 33237

V. CONCLUSION Algorithms based on FPGA, BFA (swarming) and BFA (without swarming) are developed in Matlab and their performances are tested on a test case of 15 units for nonconvex economic load dispatch problems with valve point loading effects. Experimental results reveal that all the algorithms are competent to provide better quality solutions. BFA with swarming the three exhibits the highest capability of converging to better quality solutions with higher convergence rate. BFA in both forms is superior to FPGA in terms of convergence rate and better quality solutions. In between BFAs with swarming and without swarming, the earlier one demonstrate to be more efficient in finding better quality solutions and converging to the global optimal at a faster rate. Hence, BFA with swarming is recommended for solution of highly nonlinear ELD problems in power system. However, lot more scope is there for further works in improvement of BFA algorithm like adaptive tuning of chemotactic steps, step size etc.

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Nidul Sinha received his B.E. degree in electrical engineering from Calcutta University, in 1984 and M.Tech. degree in power apparatus and systems from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, in 1989. He received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Jadavpur University. His research interests include application of soft computing techniques to operation, control and economics of electrical power systems, deregulation and optimization. He is a senior member of IEEE. He is also a reviewer of the journals IEEE TPWRS, TPWRD, PESL, IEEE TEC, IEE Part-C, and EPSR.

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