Solution of Different Types of Economic Load Dispatch Problems Using a Pattern Search Method

Direct search (DS) methods are evolutionary algorithms used to solve constrained optimization problems. DS methods do not require information about the gradient of the objective function when searching for an optimum solution. One such method is a pattern search (PS) algorithm. This study presents a new approach based on a constrained PS algorithm to solve various types of power system economic load dispatch (ELD) problems. These problems include economic dispatch with valve point (EDVP) effects, multi-area economic load dispatch (MAED), companied economic-environmental dispatch (CEED), and cubic cost function economic dispatch (QCFED). For illustrative purposes, the proposed PS technique has been applied to each of the above dispatch problems to validate its effectiveness. Furthermore, convergence characteristics and robustness of the proposed method has been assessed and investigated through comparison with results reported in literature. The outcome is very encouraging and suggests that PS methods may be very efficient when solving power system ELD problems

Clark Praises Judicial System

WILLIAMSBURG -- Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark said here Wednesday that he hoped there was no obstruction of justice on the part of President Nixon during the Watergate affair. Talking to reporters following a program at the College of William and Mary, Clark said that obstruction of justice is one of our gravest offenses, because it destroys the very system we live by. He said that he had not read all the details of the Watergate tape transcripts. His comments on Watergate were made in response to a question regarding Nixon and discussions with aides about hush money for Watergate defendant E. Howard Hunt. I\u27m not saying there was any kind of obstruction of justice, Clark emphasized, I\u27m just saying that I hope it didn\u27t occur. Clark was on the Supreme Court from 1949 until he retired in 1967. The recent trial of former Atty. Gen. John N. Mitchell and former Commerce Secretary Maurice H.Stans showed the strength of our judicial system in that 12 people have the courage to stand up and make important decisions, he said. Clark was on the W&M campus Wednesday as part of Law Day 1974 program sponsored by the Marshall-Wythe School of Law here, the W&M Student Bar Association and the Norfolk-Portsmouth Bar Association. During the ceremony, Clark was recognized as one of the nation\u27s most successful and illustrious jurists by Dean James P. Whyte of the Marshall-Wythe School of Law, who presented Clark with the school\u27s Marshall-Wythe medallion, an award reserved for selected leaders of the legal profession. As another part of the Law Day observance, Judge John A. MacKenzie, federal district judge for the eastern district of Virginia, presided over a special session of Federal District Court convened here to naturalize 124 persons from the Tidewater area as U.S. citizens. Following the ceremony, Clark spoke to about 400 persons. He said that the great test of democracy is what it puts in the hearts, minds, and purposes of its citizens

Achieving the Dispatchability of Distribution Feeders through Prosumers Data Driven Forecasting and Model Predictive Control of Electrochemical Storage

We propose and experimentally validate a control strategy to dispatch the operation of a distribution feeder interfacing heterogeneous prosumers by using a grid-connected battery energy storage system (BESS) as a controllable element coupled with a minimally invasive monitoring infrastructure. It consists in a two-stage procedure: day-ahead dispatch planning, where the feeder 5-minute average power consumption trajectory for the next day of operation (called \emph{dispatch plan}) is determined, and intra-day/real-time operation, where the mismatch with respect to the \emph{dispatch plan} is corrected by applying receding horizon model predictive control (MPC) to decide the BESS charging/discharging profile while accounting for operational constraints. The consumption forecast necessary to compute the \emph{dispatch plan} and the battery model for the MPC algorithm are built by applying adaptive data driven methodologies. The discussed control framework currently operates on a daily basis to dispatch the operation of a 20~kV feeder of the EPFL university campus using a 750~kW/500~kWh lithium titanate BESS.Comment: Submitted for publication, 201

Endowment Unit Approves Grants

The Virginia Environmental Endowment board of directors approved $194,000 in grants yesterday to environmental projects, including$61,000 to the College of William and Mary law school for conferences on environmental law and purchases of environmental law books. Law school dean William B. Spong, who had sought the funds from the endowment, said the school will appoint a special committee to develop formats for the conferences to be held during the next two years. The tentative schedule calls for a conference this fall dealing with Virginia environmental law and its relationship to federal law. A second conference in February 1979 will deal with a general approach to environmental law. A third conference in the late summer of 1979 will deal with the practice of environmental law and will be offered in cooperation with the Virginia Bar Association. The fourth and final conference will be held in the fall of 1979 and will deal with the effect of environmental laws on the state\u27s seafood industry. Spong said only the third conference will be aimed strictly at lawyers. The rest will be geared to industry officials, health professionals, seafood industry representatives, journalists, and others, he said. The grant to the law school also includes $21,000 for the purchase of 1,200 volumes of environmental law books, which, Spong said, will give the law school as good a library on environmental, coastal and water resource law as any library in the nation. Gerald P. McCarthy, executive director of the endowment, said the remainder of the$194,000 in grants will be announced later this month after the endowment has contacted the recipients to make sure terms are acceptable. McCarthy did say some of the grants will go to projects related to the Kepone pollution of the James River. The endowment is a non-profit, independent corporation created in 1977 with an $8 million contribution from Allied Chemical Corp., which gave the money in lieu of a fine for its part in the Kepone pollution of the James River

Improved Heuristics for the Early/Tardy Scheduling Problem with No Idle Time

In this paper we consider the single machine earliness/tardiness scheduling problem with no idle time. We present two new heuristics, a dispatch rule and a greedy procedure, and also consider the best of the existing dispatch rules. Both dispatch rules use a lookahead parameter that had previously been set at a fixed value. We develop functions that map some instance statistics into appropriate values for that parameter. We also consider the use of dominance rules to improve the solutions obtained by the heuristics. The computational results show that the function-based versions of the heuristics outperform their fixed value counterparts and that the use of the dominance rules can indeed improve solution quality with little additional computational effort.scheduling, early/tardy, heuristics, dispatch rules, dominance rules