Unit commitment using harmony search algorithm with varying initial status

In power system, unit commitment is pivotal in improving the scheduling of the thermal units which results in the reduction in cost value. Unit commitment is the amalgamation of evaluating the operational units as well as predicting the generation of each unit by maintaining the system constraints. In this paper, the conventional unit commitment was solved using the harmony search algorithm with varying on-off initial time. The potential of the proposed method is tested on four generating unit system and made a comparison with existing methods. The variation of initial time values makes a better global value and the convergence of the system is quicker with the elimination of local optima.