Optimization of the sizing of a solar thermal electricity plant: Mathematical programming versus genetic algorithms

Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been argued to constitute a flexible search thereby enabling to solve difficult problems which classical optimization methodologies may find hard to solve. This paper is intended towards this direction and show a systematic application of a GA and its modification to solve a real-world optimization problem of sizing a solar thermal electricity plant. Despite the existence of only three variables, this problem exhibits a number of other common difficulties - black-box nature of solution evaluation, massive multi-modality, wide and non-uniform range of variable values, and terribly rugged function landscape - which prohibits a classical optimization method to find even a single acceptable solution. Both GA implementations perform well and a local analysis is performed to demonstrate the optimality of obtained solutions. This study considers both classical and genetic optimization on a fairly complex yet typical real-world optimization problems and demonstrates the usefulness and future of GAs in applied optimization activities in practice.