Evaluation of Heuristic Techniques for Solving the Short-Term Hydrothermal Scheduling based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The economic operation of hydrothermal systems is one of the most challenging problems in the area of power systems because it is a non-linear and non-convex problem. The use of heuristic optimization methods are an attractive alternative to traditional deterministic methods by offering excellent quality in their results with an implementation that is characterized by having a simple concept. This document solves the hydrothermal coordination problem considering the hydraulic coupling of hydroelectric power plants and the valve point effect in thermal power plants using genetic algorithms (GA), the novel grey wolf algorithm (GWO) and particle swarm optimization method (PSO). In addition, different Key Performance Indicators are proposed to validate the performance achieved by each heuristic technique applied to the planning of the economic dispatch of a multiple set of thermal and hydroelectric power plants for a daily scheduling horizon of 24-hour.