Hybrid Chemical Reaction Optimization Approach for Combined Economic Emission Short-term Hydrothermal Scheduling

—This article presents the hybridization of a newly developed, novel, and efficient chemical reaction optimization technique and differential evolution for solving a short-term hydrothermal scheduling problem. The main objective of the short-term scheduling is to schedule the hydro and thermal plants generation in such a way that minimizes the generation cost. However, due to strict government regulations on environmental protection, operation at minimum cost is no longer the only criterion for dispatching electrical power. The idea behind the environmentally constrained hydrothermal scheduling formulation is to estimate the optimal generation schedule of hydro and thermal generating units in such a manner that fuel cost and harmful emission levels are both simultaneously minimized for a given load demand. In this context, this article proposes a hybrid chemical reaction optimization and differential evolution approach for solving the multi-objective short-term combined economic emission scheduling problem. The effectiveness of the proposed hybrid chemical reaction optimization and differential evolution method is validated by carrying out extensive tests on two hydrothermal scheduling problems with incremental fuel-cost functions taking into account the valve-point loading effects. The result shows that the proposed algorithm improves the solution accuracy and reliability compared to other techniques.