Mehdi Mirzaei - PhD Electrical Power Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering, Khodaafarin Branch, Islamic Azad university, Khodaafarin, Iran & Department of Electrical Engineering, Horand Center, Technical and Vocational Training Organization, East Azarbaijan, H
Milad Pourmehrali - MSc Electrical Power Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering, Khodaafarin Branch, Islamic Azad university, Khodaafarin, Iran
Yahya Shokraneh - B.S Electrical Power Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering, Khodaafarin Branch, Islamic Azad university, Khodaafarin, Iran
Maerefat Piri - B.S Electrical Power Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering, Khodaafarin Branch, Islamic Azad university, Khodaafarin, Iran

In this paper, the Economic Dispatch (ED) problem has been optimized by Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA). ICA is a population based stochastic optimization technique Originally developed by Eberhart and Kennedy, inspired by simulation of a social psychological metaphor instead of the survival of the fittest individual. In ICA, the system (imperialists) is initialized with a population of random solutions (colonies) and searches for optima using cognitive and social factors by updating generations. The proposed methodology is validated for a test system consisting of ۱۳ thermal units whose incremental fuel cost function takes into account the valve-point loading effects.

Economic dispatch, Imperialist competitive algorithm, Power system, Optimization