A New Binary Variant of Sine–Cosine Algorithm: Development and Application to Solve Profit-Based Unit Commitment Problem

The profit-based unit commitment (PBUC) procedure is a binary natured operational planning problem of generation company (GENCO) in competitive electricity market. The GENCO solves PBUC problem in day ahead market of energy and reserve markets by commitment and scheduling of thermal units with an objective of profit maximization for the set of given price and load forecasts. Therefore, the solution quality and efficacy of PBUC optimization problem play a vital role in ensuring maximum returns to the GENCO. This paper presents a mathematical model-inspired heuristic approach called binary sine–cosine algorithm (BSCA) for solving PBUC problem. The SCA algorithm is a heuristic approach that uses the fluctuating nature of individual candidates/search agents in the search space around the global solution. The fluctuating mechanism is realized by using mathematical functions, i.e. sine and cosine functions. The proposed binary approach of SCA algorithm uses modified sigmoidal transformation function for binary mapping of continuous real-valued search space to binary counterpart. The efficacy of proposed approach in terms of solution quality and convergence is demonstrated using test system with different market participation policies. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed BSCA approach over existing approaches for solving PBUC.