A maiden application of gravitational search algorithm with wavelet mutation for the solution of economic load dispatch problems

Gravitational search algorithm (GSA) is one of the new optimisation algorithms based on the law of gravity and mass interactions. In this algorithm, the searcher agents are a collection of masses, and their interactions are based on the Newtonian laws of gravity and motion. In this article, a novel GSA with wavelet mutation (WM) (GSAWM) is proposed. It utilises the wavelet theory to enhance the GSA in exploring the solution space more effectively for a better solution. This algorithm is utilised for the optimal solutions of different economic load dispatch (ELD) problems of power systems. The obtained results are compared with those of the other state-of-the-art heuristic optimisation techniques published in the literature. Both the near-optimality of the solution and the convergence speed of the algorithm are promising.