Optimal electricity procurement strategy for electricity retailer using binary imperialist competitive algorithm

In restructured electricity markets, the electricity retailers have various procurement strategies to supply consumer electricity demand from alternative resources such as self-generating facility, bilateral contracts and pool market purchase. This paper proposes a binary imperialist competitive algorithm (BICA) method to find optimal procurement strategies for electricity retailers with multiple procurement options. The solutions of these problems provide adequate information to obtain an electricity procurement strategy for electricity retailers. Results show that the proposed approach is more effective and has higher capability in finding optimum solutions. A case study is used to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.

Keywords:

Electricity procurement strategy , retailers , binary imperialist competitive algorithm (BICA)