International Journal on Electrical Engineering and Informatics - Volume 8, Number 2, June 2016

Solution of Economic Load Dispatch problem in Power System using

Lambda Iteration and Back Propagation Neural Network Methods
M.Suman1, M.Venu Gopala Rao2, A.Hanumaiah3, and K.Rajesh4
1,4
Asistantant Professor, VLITS, Vadlamudi,India.
2
Professor&Head ,PVPSIT, Kanuru, Vijayawada,India.
3
Professor, VLITS, Vadlamudi, India.

Abstract: Economic load dispatch is the process of allocating the required load demand
between the available generators in power system while satisfying all units and system equality
and inequality constraints. Economic Load Dispatch solutions are found by solving the
conventional methods such as lambda iteration, Gradient search method, Linear Programming
and Dynamic Programming while at the same minimizing fuel costs, but convergence is too
slow, so in order to get fast convergence and accurate results we are using artificial neural
network. Artificial neural network is well-known in the area of power systems. It is a very
powerful solution algorithm because of its rapid convergence near the solution. This property is
especially useful for power system applications because an initial guess near the solution is
easily attained. In this paper a three generator system is considered and by using lambda
iteration method Economic Load Dispatch is determined and 150 patterns for different loads
will be derived from same method to train neural network. As it is too slow method, we
proposed a soft computing based approach i.e. Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) for
determining the optimal flow. This method provides fast and accurate results when compared
with the conventional method.

Keywords: Load Dispatch, Economic Load Dispatch, Lambda Iteration, Back Propagation
Training Algorithm, Neural Network and Artificial Neural Network.

1. Introduction
The optimal system operation, in general, involved the consideration of economy of
operation, system security, emission at certain fossil-fuel plants, optimal releases of water at
hydro generation, etc. All these consideration may make for conflicting requirement and
usually a compromise has to be made for optimal system operation [1]. The main aim in the
economic dispatch [2] problem is to minimize the total cost of generation real power
(production cost) [3] at various stations while satisfying the load and the losses in transmission
line. The major component of generation operating cost is the fuel input/hour. The fuel cost is
meaningful in case of thermal and nuclear stations, but for hydro station where the energy
storage is ‘apparently free’. The operating cost as such is not meaningful.
Since an engineer is always concerned with the cost of products and services, the
efficient optimum economic operation [4] and planning of electric power generation
system have always occupied an important position in the electric power industry. With
large interconnection of the electric networks, the energy crisis in the world and continuous
rise in prices, it is very essential to reduce the running charges of the electric energy. A
saving in the operation of the system of a small percent represents a significant reduction in
operating cost as well as in the quantities of fuel consumed. The classic problem is the
economic load dispatch of generating systems to achieve minimum operating cost.
This problem area has taken a subtle twist as the public has become increasingly
concerned with environmental matters, so that economic dispatch now includes the dispatch
of systems to minimize pollutants and conserve various forms of fuel, as well as achieve
minimum cost. In addition there is a need to expand the limited economic optimization
problem to incorporate constraints on system operation to ensure the security of the system,

nd st
Received: November 12 , 2015. Accepted: June 21 , 2016
DOI: 10.15676/ijeei.2016.8.2.8 347
M.Suman, et al.

thereb y preventing the collapse of the system due to unforeseen conditions. However closely
associated with this economic dispatch problem is the problem of the proper commitment of
any array of units out of a total array of units to serve the expected load demands in an
‘optimal’ manner. For the purpose of optimum economic operation of this large scale
system, modern system theory and optimization techniques are being applied with the
expectation of considerable cost savings.

2. Economic Load Dispatch

The economic load dispatch (ELD) is an important function in modern power system
like unit commitment, Load Fo r ecasting , Availab l e T ransfer Cap ab ilit y ( ATC)
calculatio n , Secur it y Analysis, Scheduling of fuel purchase etc. A bibliographical survey
on ELD methods reveals that various numerical optimization techniques have been employed
to approach the ELD problem. ELD is solved traditionally using mathematical programming
based on optimization techniques such as lambda iteration, gradient method, Newton’s
method, Piecewise linear cost functions, Linear programming , Dynamic programming.
The Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) problem is one of the fundamental issues in power
operation. The ELD problem involves the solution of two different problems. The first of these
is the Unit Commitment or pre-dispatch problem wherein it is required to select optimally out
of the available generating sources to operate, to meet the expected load and provide a
specified margin of operating reserve over a specified period of time.
The second aspect of economic dispatch is the on-line economic dispatch wherein it is
required to distribute the load among the generating units actually paralleled with the system in
such manner as to minimize the total cost of supplying the minute-to-minute requirements of
the system. The main objective is to reduce the cost of energy production taking into account
the transmission losses. While the problem can be solved easily if the incremental cost curves
of the generators are assumed to be monotonically increasing piece-wise linear functions, such
an approach will not be workable for nonlinear functions in practical systems. In the past
decade, conventional optimization techniques such as lambda iterative method, linear
programming and quadratic programming have been successfully used to solve power system
optimization problems such as Unit commitment and Economic load dispatch. Lambda
iteration, gradient method can solve simple ELD calculations and they are not sufficient
for real applications in deregulated market. However, they are fast.
There are several Intelligent methods among them genetic algorithm applied to solve the
real time problem of solving t h e economic load dispatch problem. Whereas some of the
works are done by Evolutionary algorithm. Few other methods like tabulation search are
applied to solve to solve the problem. Artificial neural network[5] are also used to solve the
optimization problem. However many people applied the swarm behavior to the problem of
optimum dispatch as well as unit commitment problem are general purpose; however, they
have randomness. For a practical problem, like ELD, the intelligent methods[6][7] should
be modified accordingly so that they are suitable to solve economic dispatch with more
accurate multiple fuel cost functions and constraints, and they can reduce randomness.

A. Cost Function
The total cost incurred to generate electrical energy is the sum of the cost of individual
generator[8][9]. Cost function is given by
N
C  
i 1
C (P )
i gi
(1)

B. System Constraints
Broadly speaking there are two types of constraints
i) Equality constraints ii) Inequality constraints

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Solution of Economic Load Dispatch problem in Power System

i) Equality Constraints
From observation we can conclude that cost function is not affected by the reactive
power demand. So the full attention is given to the real power balance in the system.
Power balance requires that the controlled generation variables PGi abbey the constraints
equation.
n
PD   Pgi (2)
i 1

ii) In-Equality Constraints

Inequality constraints consists of generator constraints such as active power and reactive
power constraints as below
Active Power Constraint: Pmin  P  Pmax
Reactive Power Constraint: Qmin  Q  Qmax
The inequality Constraints also consists of Voltage Constraints, Running Spare Capacity
Constraints, Transmission Line Constraints, Transformer taps settings, Network security
constraints.

3. Lambda iteration method

Algorithm for Lambda Iteration method [10][11] :
1. Read data, namely cost coefficients, , bi , ci : B-coefficients , bij, bi0 , b00
(i=1,2,……..NG; j=1,2,………NG) ITMAX, ε,α
F ( Pgi )
2. Compute Pgi (3)

Pi
1
Pgi
  bi (4)
Pgi 
2a i
3. Assume no generator has being fixed at either lower limit or at upper limit
4. Set iteration counter, IT=1
NG
 (1  Bi 0   2 Bij Pgj )  Bi
j 1
5. Compute j i (5)
Pgi 
2( ai  Bii )
NG NG NG
6.
L 00  i 0 gi  Pgi Bij Pgj
Compute transmission losses P  B  B P 
i 1 i 1 j 1
(6)

NG

L  Gi
7. Compute P  P  P  P (7)
D
i 1

8. Check |∆𝑃|≤ ε, if yes then goto step 11

Check IT≥ ITMAX, if yes then GOTO step11
9. Modify λnew=λ+ α∆P, where α is the step size used to increase or decrease the value
of λ in order to meet the step 7
10. IT=IT+1, λ=λ𝑛𝑒𝑤 and GOTO step 5 and repeat
11. Check the limits of generators if no more violations then GOTO step13, else fix as
following
If 𝑃𝑔𝑖< P𝑔𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛 then 𝑃𝑔𝑖= 𝑃𝑔𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛
If 𝑃𝑔𝑖 > 𝑃𝑔𝑖max ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑃𝑔𝑖= 𝑃𝑔𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑥
12. GOTO step4
13. Compute the optimal total cost and transmission losses.
14. Stop

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M.Suman, et al.

4. Back propagation neural network

Back Propagation is a systematic method for training multilayer artificial networks. It is a
multilayer forward network using extend gradient-descent based delta-learning rule, commonly
known as back propagation rule. Back propagation provides a computationally efficient
method for changing the weights in a feed forward network, with differential activation
function units, to learn a training set of input-output examples. Being a gradient descent
method it minimizes the total squared error of the output computed by net. The network is
trained by supervised learning method.
The aim of this network is to train the net to achieve a balance between the ability to respond
correctly to the input patterns that are used for training and the ability to provide good
responses to the input that are similar.

Algorithm:
The Total algorithm will be the combination of the following four groups (A,B,C &D)

A. Initialization of the weights

Step1:Initialize weights to small random values
Step2: While stopping condition is false do Steps 3-10
Step3: For each training pair do steps 4-9

B. Feed Forward
Step4: Each hidden unit receives the input signal xi and transmits the signals to all units in the
layer above i.e. hidden units
Step5: Each hidden unit sums its weihted input signals
n
(8)
Z  Voj 
inj 
( X xV )
i 1
i ij

applying activation function for to get output

Zj=f(Z-inj) (9)

Step6: Each output unit sums its weighted input signals

p
(10)
Yinj  Wok   (Z
j 1
j xW jk )

and apply activation function to calculate output

Yk=f(Y-inj) (11)

C. Back Propagation of errors

Each output unit receives a target pattern corresponding to an input pattern , error
information term is calculated as
Δk= (tk-yk)x f(Y-ink) (12)
Step8: Each hidden unit sums its delta from units in the layer above
m
(13)
 
-inj  xW
k 1
j jk

The error information term is calculated as

δj= δ -inj x f(Z-inj) (14)

D.Updation of the weights

Step9: Each unit updates its bias and weights
The weight correction term is given by
ΔWjk=alpha x δk x Zj (15)

And the bias correction term is given by

ΔWok=alpha x δk (16)

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Solution of Economic Load Dispatch problem in Power System

Therefore
Wjk(new)=Wjk(old)+ ΔWjk, (17)
Wok(new)=Wok(old)+ ΔWok

Each hidden unit updates its bias and weights.The weight correction term is given by
ΔVij=alpha x δj x Xi (18)

And the bias correction term is given by

ΔVok=alpha x δj
Therefore Vij(new)=Vij(old)+ ΔVij, (19)
Voj(new)=Voj(old)+ ΔWoj
Step10:Test stopping condition

5. Test system
The three generating units considered are having different characteristic. Their cost
function characteristics are given by following equations
F1  0.00156 x Pg21  7.92 x Pg1  561
F 2  0.00194 x Pg22  7.85 x Pg 2  310
F 3  0.00482 x Pg23  7.97 x Pg 3  78
According to the constraints considered in this work among inequality constraints only
active power constraints are considered. Their o p erati n g limit o f maximum a n d minimum
powers are also different. The unit operating ranges are
100 MW  Pg1  600 MW
100 MW  Pg 2  400 MW
50 MW  Pg 2  200 MW
The t r a n s m i s s i o n line losses can be calculated by knowing the loss coefficient. The
Bmn loss coefficient matrix is given by
 0.7 0.05 0.075
Bmn   0.05 0.15 0.01 
0.075 0.10 0.450

6. Result
Lambda iteration method is converged in 15 iterations and error is minimized below 0.001.
The error versus iterations graph is as shown in figure 1

Error vs iteration reponse curve in Lambda iteration method

120

100

80
Error

60

40

20

0
0 5 10 15
Iterations
Figure 1. Error versus iteration response in Lambda iteration method.

Economic Dispatch using Lambda Iteration method is as given in the conclusion Table.

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M.Suman, et al.

Using Lambda Iteration method for different input load demands different out puts were
determined as a training set to the neural network. Neararly 150 training patterns were
developed. But Neural Network accepts values between 0 and 1only, so all these patterns has
to be normalised between 0and 1.

Normalization is done as follows.

 Select maximum and minimum values out of the total training patterns
 Now normalization of any value x is given by
Norm =(x-min)/ (max-min).

The architecture of the proposed Back Propagation Neural Network has been shown in fig.2.
W
Pg1

Pg2

Pd

Pg3

Ploss

V0b
Input Layer Hidden Layer Output Layer

Figure2. Proposed Back Propagation Neural Network

The network considered is having 1 input neurons and 4 hidden layer neurons and 4 output
layer neurons. 1 bias neuron is also connected to the output layer. The inputs to the neural
network is active power demand and Outputs of the neural network are Economic Load
Dispatch of the three generators and loses.
Neural Network is converged in 21430 iterations and the error versus iterations graph is as
shown in fig.3 , eight iterations are picked randomly out of total iterations.

Error vs iterations response of BPNN

3

2
Error

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Iterations
Figure 3. Error versus iteration response of BPNN

The finalized weights after complete training with 150 patterns are as follows
weihts between output and hidden layer
[-3.75094 -6.35845 3.44324 -6.3468
-3.79352 -5.1391 5.78377 -5.17903
-3.80224 -5.13058 5.78339 -5.17952
-3.77419 -5.2295 5.68096 -5.26371 ]

weihts between hidden and output layer

[-20.6266 -1.17142 1.16001 -1.17133]

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Solution of Economic Load Dispatch problem in Power System

bias weihts between output and hidden layer

[2.36679
0.00325223
0.00237995
0.00996728]

Table 1. Comparison
In the above comparison table for different load demands using Lambda iteration and Back
Propagation Neural network Economic Load Dispatch [12] and losses are determined.
S.no Input Lambda iteration method Artificial neural network

--- PD PG1 PG2 PG3 PL TIME PG1N PG2N PG3N PLN TIME
5.6
1 528 210.13 242.37 81.13 0.419 210.14 242.46 81.16 5.65 0.0142
4
5.7
2 534 212.57 245.05 82.15 0.456 212.32 244.76 82.04 5.76 0.0264
7
5.8
3 537 213.78 246.39 82.66 0.342 213.69 246.28 82.62 5.83 0.008
4
5.9
4 540 215.00 247.73 83.17 0.372 215.08 247.82 83.21 5.91 0.0175
1

Comparison is made in view of accuracy and time of execution. Load Demand in the above
Table is randomly selected. For to calculate the Economic Load Dispatch different
conventional methods such as Lambda iteration, Gradient Search methods, Linear Programming
and Dynamic Programming and also evolutionary programming methods such as Genetic
Algorithm, Particle swarm Optimization[13][14][15], Ant Colony and Bees optimization
algorithm will be used. But Artificial Neural Network is a soft computing technique which can
give accurate and fast results when compared to above methods.

7. Conclusion
Economic load dispatch problem here solved for two cases. One with transmission losses
and other without transmission losses in three units generating station. This problem is solved
by Lambda-Iteration method in the MATLAB environment. After solving economic load
dispatch problem the total operating cost of power generation is low. This low operating cost is
achieved by proper scheduling of each unit using lambda-iteration method. Optimal Dispatch
of Power Generation for the given load patterns by using conventional method i.e. NEWTON
method are determined. As this is too slow, we proposed a soft computing based approach i.e.
Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) for determining the load dispatching. This method
provided fast and accurate results when compared with the conventional method. By using this
soft computing method we can also reduce the execution time, which plays a vital role in load
sharing. In
future this project can be extended by using Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN).

8. References
[1]. Panta, S., Premrudeepreechacharn, S.” Economic dispatch for power generation using
artificial neural network”, Power Electronics, 2007. ICPE '07. 7th Internatonal
Conference on 22-26 Oct. 2007, pp. 558 – 562.
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Artificial Neural Network in Electrical based power industry”. IJAREEIE, Vol. 2, Issue
10, October 2013, pp. 4704-4711.
[3]. Sarat Kumar Mishra,Sudhansu Kumar Mishra, “A Comparative Study of Solution of
Economic Load Dispatch Problem in Power Systems in the Environmental Perspective”
International Conference on Computer, Communication and Convergence (ICCC 2015),
Volume 48, Pages 96-100,2015.

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M.Suman, et al.

[4]. Hardiansyah , Junaidi, Yohannes , “ Application of Soft computing methods for

Economic Load Dispatch Problems”, International Journal of Computer Applications,
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load dispatch”, Environment and Electrical Engineering (EEEIC), 2011 10th
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Plant Using Differential Evolution Technique”, International Journal of Engineering
Trends and Technology (IJETT),Volume-22, Number-4,2015.
[7]. S. N. Sivanandam, S. Sumathi, S.N. Deepa, Introduction to Neural Networks using.
MATLAB 6.0, Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi.
[8]. P. Aravindhababu and K.R. Nayar, Economic dispatch based on optimal lambda using
radial basis function network, Elect. Power Energy Syst,. 24 (2002), pp. 551–556.
[9]. K.Y. Lee, A. Sode-Yome and J.H. Park, Adaptive Hopfield neural network for economic
load dispatch, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 13 (May (2)) (1998), pp. 519–526.
[10]. Zwe-Lee. Gaing, lambda iteration method to solving the economic dispatch considering
the generator constraints, IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 18 (3) (2003), pp. 1187-1195 Closure
to discussion of lambda iteration method to solving the economic dispatch considering the
generator constraints’, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., 19 (November (4)) (2004)
[11]. Manoj Mahajan, Shelly Vadhera, “Economic load dispatch of different bus systems using
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[12]. G. Loganathan , D. Rajkumar , M. Vigneshwaran , R. Senthilkumar, “An enhanced time
effective particle swarm intelligence for the practical economic load dispatch”, Electrical
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[13]. Nagendra Singh, Yogendra Kumar , “Economic load dispatch with environmental
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MATLAB 6.0, Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi.

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Solution of Economic Load Dispatch problem in Power System

M. SUMAN received the B.Tech. degree in Electrical and Electronics

engineering from Gudla valleru Engineering College in 2007, M. Tech
degree in Power Electronics and Power systems Engineering from K.L.C.E
in 2010. He is Presently persuing Ph.D at JNTUK,Kakinada and having Six
years experience in teaching . He is currently working as Assistant professor
in Department of EEE in VLITS, Vadlamudi. He has published papers in
various journals and national conferences. His interest includes Power
System Stabilizers , Artificial Intelligent Techniques, Facts Controllers and
Reactive Power Compensation. [email protected]

Venu Gopala Rao.M, FIE, MIEEE at present is Professor & Head,

department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, PVPSIT, Kanuru, Andhra
Pradesh, India. He received B.E. degree in Electrical and Electronics
Engineering from Gulbarga University in 1996, M.E (Electrical Power
Engineering) from M S University, Baroda, India in 1999, M.Tech (Computer
Science) from JNT University, India in 2004 and Doctoral Degree in
Electrical & Electronics Engineering from J.N.T.University, Hyderabad, India
in 2009. He published more than 20 papers in various National, International Conferences and
Journals. His research interests accumulate in the area of Power Quality, Distribution System,
High Voltage Engineering and Electrical Machines. [email protected]

A. Hanumaiah received Ph.D degree from Osmania University,

Hydearabad in the year 1996. He published many national and international
papers in field of electrical and dielectric properties of single phase and two
phase materials. In 1996 , he joined as professor in vignan’s lara institute of
technology and science,vadlamudi,Guntur. Now he is with EEE department
as professor .His research areas includes nonconventional energy
sources,Synthesis and characterization of phosphate based
glasses. [email protected]

K. Rajesh received the B.Tech. degree in Electrical and Electronics

engineering from Bapatla Engineering College in 2009, M. Tech degree in
Power and Energy systems Engineering from NITK, Surathkal in 2011. He
is having Five years experience in teaching . He is currently working as
Assistant professor in Department of EEE in VLITS, Vadlamudi. He has
published papers in various journals and national conferences. His interest
includes Energy Systems, Artificial Intelligent Techniques, DC-DC power
converter, and Distribution System. [email protected]

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