Deriving optimal operation of reservoir proposing improved artificial bee colony algorithm: standard and constrained versions

In this paper, one of the newest meta-heuristic algorithms, named artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm, is used to solve the single-reservoir operation optimization problem. The simple and hydropower reservoir operation optimization problems of Dez reservoir, in southern Iran, have been solved here over 60, 240, and 480 monthly operation time periods considering two different decision variables. In addition, to improve the performance of this algorithm, two improved artificial bee colony algorithms have been proposed and these problems have been solved using them. Furthermore, in order to improve the performance of proposed algorithms to solve large-scale problems, two constrained versions of these algorithms have been proposed, in which in these algorithms the problem constraints have been explicitly satisfied. Comparison of the results shows that using the proposed algorithm leads to better results with low computational costs in comparison with other available methods such as genetic algorithm (GA), standard and improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) algorithm, honey-bees mating optimization (HBMO) algorithm, ant colony optimization algorithm (ACOA), and gravitational search algorithm (GSA). Therefore, the proposed algorithms are capable algorithms to solve large reservoir operation optimization problems.