Economic Dispatch

Economic Dispatch (ED) is the process of optimally allocating power output among committed generators to meet demand at minimum fuel cost. Introduced by Kirchmayer in 1958, ED is a fundamental real-time optimization problem solved every few minutes in power system operations. Unlike Unit Commitment (which decides generator on/off), ED assumes generators are already committed and focuses on splitting load most economically. ED's rapid feedback enables efficient real-time power plant operations.