Modified Social Group Optimization to Solve the Problem of Economic Emission Dispatch with the Incorporation of Wind Power

Economic dispatch, emission dispatch, or their combination (EcD, EmD, EED) are essential issues in power systems optimization that focus on optimizing the efficient and sustainable use of energy resources to meet power demand. A new algorithm is proposed in this article to solve the dispatch problems with/without considering wind units. It is based on the Social Group Optimization (SGO) algorithm, but some features related to the selection and update of heuristics used to generate new solutions are changed. By applying the highly disruptive polynomial operator (HDP) and by generating sequences of random and chaotic numbers, the perturbation of the vectors composing the heuristics is achieved in our Modified Social Group Optimization (MSGO). Its effectiveness was investigated in 10-unit and 40-unit power systems, considering valve-point effects, transmission line losses, and inclusion of wind-based sources, implemented in four case studies. The results obtained for the 10-unit system indicate a very good MSGO performance, in terms of cost and emissions. The average cost reduction of MSGO compared to SGO is 368.1 $/h, 416.7 $/h, and 525.0 $/h for the 40-unit systems. The inclusion of wind units leads to 10% reduction in cost and 45% in emissions. Our modifications to MSGO lead to better convergence and higher-quality solutions than SGO or other competing algorithms.