Ant colony optimization (ACO) which is inspired by the natural behavior of ants in finding the shortest path to food is appropriate for solving the combinatorial optimization problems. Therefore, it is used to solve the unit commitment problem (UCP) and attain the minimum cost for scheduling thermal units in order to produce the demand load. In this paper modified ACO (MACO) is used to solve th...

In this paper unit commitment problem (UCP) with spinning reserve and ramp rate constraint has been solved using Ant Colony System (ACS). In this model, foraging behavior of the real ants for finding its food from its start (nest) to its destination (food) is simulated to obtain the optimum solution. A search strategy has been adopted which involves the artificial ants to obtain the minimum cos...

Most spider threads are on the micrometre and sub-micrometre scale. Yet, there are some spiders that spin true nano-scale fibres such as the cribellate orb spider, Uloborus plumipes. Here, we analyse the highly specialized capture silk-spinning system of this spider and compare it with the silk extrusion systems of the more standard spider dragline threads. The cribellar silk extrusion system c...

Traditionally, conventional generation unit was used to provide ancillary services e.g. reactive power support, and spinning reserve. Nonetheless, with the emergence of highly penetrated distributed energy resources (DERs) systems and considering how beneficial they can be; it appears reasonable to use them as reactive power providers. Therefore, this paper introduces a new procedure for DERs t...

The shipping industry is going through a period of technology transition that aims to increase the use carbon-neutral fuels. There significant trend vessels being ordered with alternative fuel propulsion. Shipping’s future market will be more diverse, reliant on multiple energy sources. One very promising means meet decarbonisation requirements operate ships sustainable electrical by integratin...