Optimal Scheduling of Cascaded Hydrothermal Systems Using a New Improved Particle Swarm Optimization Technique

Optimum scheduling of hydrothermal plants generation is of great importance to electric utilities. Many evolutionary techniques such as particle swarm optimization, differential evolution have been applied to solve these problems and found to perform in a better way in comparison with conventional optimization methods. But often these methods converge to a sub-optimal solution prematurely. This paper presents a new improved particle swarm optimization technique called self-organizing hierarchical particle swarm optimization technique with time-varying acceleration coefficients (SOHPSO_TVAC) for solving short-term economic generation scheduling of hydrothermal systems to avoid premature convergence. A multi-reservoir cascaded hydrothermal system with nonlinear relationship between water discharge rate, power generation and net head is considered here. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated on two test systems comprising of hydro and thermal units. The results obtained by the proposed methods are compared with other methods. The results show that the proposed technique is capable of producing better results.

Study on Correlation of Angstrom Turbidity Coefficient (β) with Aerosol Optical Depth (τ) over a Period of Two Years (2004-2006) for the Special Mangrove Ecosystem of Sun-darbans

A study on the correlation of the angstrom turbidity coefficient (β) with aerosol optical depth (τ) have been studied on the basis of field measurements carried out at Kaikhali (22.022°N & 88.614°E) lying in the east coast of India inside the Sundarbans. The angstrom turbidity coefficients have been calculated with respect to the filter channels at 340 nm, 500 nm, 870 nm, 936 nm and 1020 nm of a Sunphotometer. Assessment of the possible influx of the fine particulate concentrations to the total aerosol loading in the area have been made with respect to the calculated angstrom turbidity values for the summer and winter seasons over a period of two years from 2004 to 2006. Substantially high angstrom turbidity coefficient values exceeding 0.2 and indicative of a relatively hazy atmosphere for both the summer and winter periods over these two years from 2004-2006 have been observed. Considering the importance of this fragile mangrove ecosystem of the Sundarbans and also the vulnerability of the area to severe impacts of climate changes, this is indeed a thought provoking issue as far as the policy makers of the country are concerned. In fact, the study has confirmed positive correlation of β with τ.

Economic analysis of a hybrid solar-fuel cell power delivery system using tuned genetic algorithm

An economic evaluation of a network of distributed energy resources （DERs） comprising a microgrid structure of power delivery system in an Indian scenario has been made. The mathematical analysis is based on the application of tuned genetic algorithm （TGA）. The analyses for optimal power operation pertaining to minimum cost have been made for two cases in Indian power delivery system. The first case deals with the consumers＇ individual optimal operation of DERs, while in the second one, consumers altogether form a microgrid with the optimal supply of power from DERs. The total annual costs for these two cases are found to be economically competitive and encouraging. A reduction of approximately 5.7% in the annual cost has been obtained in the case of microgid system than that in the separately operating consumers＇ system for a small locality of India. It is observed that the application of TGA results in a reduction of the minimum cost depicting an improved outcome in terms of energy economy.