%0 Journal Article %T A Particle Swarm Optimization with Random Particles and Fine-Tuning Mechanism for Nonconvex Economic Dispatch %A Ming-Tang Tsai %A Chin-Wei Yen %J International Journal of Electrical and Power Engineering %D 2012 %I %R 10.3923/ijepe.2011.35.41 %X This study presents a new approach to the economic dispatch problems with valve-point effects. The practical economic dispatch problem has a nonconvex cost function with equality and inequality constraints that it is difficult to find the optimal solutions using any mathematical approaches. A Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) with Random Particles and Fine-tuning mechanism (PSO-RPFT) is proposed to solve economic dispatch problem. The proposed developed in such a way that PSO with Constriction Factor (PSO-CF) is applied as a based level search which can give a good direction to the optimal global region. Random particles and fine-tuning mechanism is used as a fine tuning to determine the optimal solutions at the final. Effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated on 3 example systems and compared to that of SA, GA, EP. Results show that the proposed method is more effective in solving economic dispatch problem. %U http://www.medwellonline.net/abstract/?doi=ijepe.2011.35.41