Electrical Engineering Department

Experiment No.-03
Aim: - To obtain economic load dispatch for a general power system using
the MATLAB program.

Software Required: - MATLAB

Theory:-
The simplest economic dispatch problem is the case when transmission line losses are
neglected. That is, the problem model does not consider the system configuration and
line impedances. In essence, the model assumes that the system is only one bus with
all generation and loads connected to it as shown schematically in Figure 4-1

Figure 4-1: Plants connected to a common bus

Since transmission losses are neglected, the total demand PD is equal to the sum of
all power generation. A cost function Ci is assumed to be known for each plant. The
problem is to find the real power generation for each plant such that the objective
function (i.e: total production cost) as defined by the equation
ng

Ct =∑ Ci
i=1
n
=∑ α i + β i Pi + γ i P2i
i=1 (4-1)

is minimum, subject to the constraint

ng

∑ Pi =PD
i =1 (4-2)

where Ct is the total production cost, Ci is the production cost of ith plant, Pi is the

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generation of ith plant, PD is the total load demand, and ng is the total number of
dispatchable generating plants.

A typical approach is to augment the constraints into objective function by using the
Lagrange multiplier

( )
ng

L=C t + λ P D−∑ P i
i=1 (4-3)

The minimum of L is found by equating the partials derivatives of the function with
respect to Pi and λ to zero.

∂L
=0
∂ Pi (4-4)

∂L
=0
∂λ (4-5)

Equation (4-4), results in

∂Ct
+ λ(0−1)=0
∂ Pi

Since

Ct =C1 +C 2 +. . .. .+C n
g

then
∂C t ∂ Ci
= =λ
∂ Pi ∂ P i

and therefore the condition for optimum dispatch is

i=1,….,ng (4-6)

or

β i +2 γ i Pi =λ (4-7)

Second condition, given by (4-5), results in

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 ng

∑ Pi =PD
i =1 (4-8)

Equation (4-8) is precisely the power flow equality constraint. In summary, when
losses are neglected with no generator limits, for most economic operation, all plants
must operate at equal increment production cost, while satisfying the equality
constraint given by (4-8). In order to find the solution, (4-7) is solved for Pi as
λ−β i
Pi=
2γi i=1,….,ng (4.9)

The relations given by (4.9) are known as the coordination equations. They are
functions of λ. An analytical solution can be obtained for λ by substituting (4.9) in (4-
8), i.e
ng
λ−β i
∑ 2 γi
=PD
i=1 (4-10)

or
ng
βi
( PD + ∑ )
i=1 2γi
λ= ng
1
∑ 2γ
i=1 i (4-11)

The value of λ found from (4-11) is substituted in (4-7) to obtain the optimal
scheduling of generation. The solution for economic dispatch neglecting losses has
been found analytically.

Here, an iterative procedure is introduced. In the iterative search technique, starting

with two values, λ is obtained by extrapolation, and the process is continued until Δpi
is within a specified accuracy. However, a rapid solution is obtained by the use of the
gradient method.
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To do this, (4-10) is written as

f(λ) = PD (4-12)

Expanding the left-hand side of the above equation in Taylor’s series about an
operating point λ(k), and neglecting the higher order terms results in

(k) df ( λ ) ( k ) ( k )
f ( λ) +( ) Δλ =P D
dλ (4-13)

or
(k)
ΔP
Δλ( k )=
df ( λ ) ( k )
( )
dλ
ΔP( k )
¿ ∂ Pi
∑ ( ∂ λ )( k)
(4-14)

or

ΔP( k )
(k )
Δλ =
∑ 21γ
i (4-15)

and therefore,

λ( k +1)= λ(k ) + Δλ ( k ) (4-16)

where
ng

ΔP =P D−∑ P ( k )
(k)

i=1 i
(4-17)

The process is continued until ΔP(k) is less than a specified accuracy.

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 Electrical Engineering Department

PROCEDURE:-

1. Enter the command window of the MATLAB.

2. Create a new M – file by selecting File - New – M – File

3. Type and save the program in the editor window.

4. Execute the program by either pressing Tools – Run.

5. View the results.

Example:-

The Fuel cost function for three thermal power plants in Rs/hr is given by,

C1=500+5.3P1+0.004P2

C2=400+5.5P1+0.006P2

C3=200+5.8P1+0.009P2

Total power PD=800 neglecting line losses and no generator limit. Find optimal
dispatch and total cost in Rs/hr.

Manual Calculation:-
a) by analytical method using (4-11)
b) by graphical demonstration

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 Electrical Engineering Department
a) From (4-11), λ is found to be

Substituting for λ in the coordination equation given in (2-9), the optimal dispatch
is

8 .5−5. 3
P1= =400 MW
2∗0 . 004
8 .5−5 .5
P2 = =250 MW
2∗0 . 006
8 .5−5 .8
P3 = =150 MW
2∗0 . 009

b) From equation (4-6), the necessary conditions for optimal dispatch are
dC 1
=5 .3+ 0. 004 P1 =λ
dP1
dC 2
=5 . 5+0 . 012 P2 =λ
dP 2
dC 3
=5 . 3+0 . 018 P3 = λ
dP 3

subject to

P1+P2+P3=PD

To demonstrate the concept of equal increment cost for optimal dispatch, we can use
MATLAB plot command to plot the incremental cost of each plant on the same graph
as shown in Figure 4-2. To obtain a solution, various values of λ could be tried until

one is found which produces ∑ Pi =PD . For each λ, if ∑ Pi <P D , we increase λ

otherwise, if ∑ Pi >P D , we reduce λ. Therefore, the horizontal line shown in the graph

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 Electrical Engineering Department
is moved up or down until at the optimum point λ , ∑ Pi =PD . For this example, with
PD=800MW, the optimal dispatch is P1=400 MW, P2=250 MW and P3=150 MW at
λ=8.5rs/MWhr

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 Electrical Engineering Department

Solution:
% Iterative solution Using Newton method
alpha =[500; 400; 200];
beta = [5.3; 5.5; 5.8]; gama=[.004; .006; .009];
PD=800;
DelP = 10; % Error in DelP is set to a high value
lambda = input('Enter estimated value of Lambda = ');
fprintf('\n ')
disp([' Lambda P1 P2 P3 DP'...
' grad Delambda'])
iter = 0; % Iteration counter
while abs(DelP) >= 0.001 % Test for convergence
iter = iter + 1; % No. of iterations
P = (lambda - beta)./(2*gama);
DelP =PD - sum(P); % Residual
J = sum( ones(length(gama), 1)./(2*gama)); % Gradient sum
Delambda = DelP/J; % Change in variable
disp([lambda, P(1), P(2), P(3), DelP, J, Delambda])
lambda = lambda + Delambda; % Successive solution
end
totalcost = sum(alpha + beta.*P + gama.*P.^2)

axis([0 450 6.5 10.5]);

P1=250:10:450; P2 = 150:10:350; P3=100:10:250;
IC1= 5.3 + 0.008*P1;
IC2= 5.5 + 0.012*P2;
IC3= 5.8 + 0.018*P3;
Px = 0:100:400;
plot(P1, IC1, P2, IC2, P3, IC3, Px, lambda*ones(1, length(Px)),'-m'),
xlabel('P, MW'), ylabel(' rs/MWhr'), grid

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 Electrical Engineering Department

Result:

Conclusion:

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