Application of swarm optimization to thermal unit commitment problem

This paper presents a swarm optimization (SO) method for solving the thermal unit commitment (TUC) problem. The most difficult time-dependent minimal uptime/downtime constraints are satisfied via a set of heuristic rules which is used as a screening tool to avoid an infeasible operation schedule. Numerical results from test examples indicate the attractive properties of the proposed swarm optimization method, which are a highly optimal solution cost, faster rate of computation, and more robust convergence behavior.