| This thesis presents the application of the Evolutionary Programming optimization technique in various Power Systems Engineering problems. In particular, two areas are addressed: (1) Power System Operation , in which the following two problems are studied: Branch Outage Simulation for power system contingency studies and Power System State Estimation. (2) Power System Planning, in which the following two problems are studied: Profit-Based Unit Commitment and Unit Commitment with Network Flows Constraints.; The above problems were properly formulated as optimization problems subject to the applicable constraints. In order to show the flexibility and applicability of the models developed to solve the addressed problems, these models were tested with systems whose solution had been previously obtained by means of classical approaches available in the literature reviewed.; The main contribution of this thesis is the incorporation in the heuristic research field, of novel optimization models based in Evolutionary Programming with capacity to solve the mentioned power systems optimization problems. Thus, the available power system optimization tools are enhanced with these new models which in some cases surpass the existing optimization resources. |
