Scheduling of Demand Side Resources Using Binary Particle Swarm Optimization

Interruptible loads represent highly valuable demand side resources within the electricity industry. However, maximizing their potential value in terms of system security and scheduling is a considerable challenge because of their widely varying and potentially complex operational characteristics. This paper investigates the use of binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) to schedule a significant number of varied interruptible loads over 16 h. The scheduling objective is to achieve a system requirement of total hourly curtailments while satisfying the operational constraints of the available interruptible loads, minimizing the total payment to them and minimizing the frequency of interruptions imposed upon them. This multiobjective optimization problem was simplified by using a single aggregate objective function. The BPSO algorithm proved capable of achieving near-optimal solutions in manageable computational time-frames for this relatively complex, nonlinear and noncontinuous problem. The effectiveness of the approach was further improved by dividing the swarm into several subswarms. The proposed scheduling technique demonstrated useful performance for a relatively challenging scheduling task, and would seem to offer some potential advantages in scheduling significant numbers of widely varied and technically complex interruptible loads.