Swarm-based hybrid optimization algorithms: an exhaustive analysis and its applications to electricity load and price forecasting

In this work, we intend to propose multiple hybrid algorithms with the idea of giving a choice to the particles of a swarm to update their position for the next generation. To implement this concept, Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CSA), Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO), Harris Hawks Optimization (HHO), and Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) have been utilized. Exhaustive possible combinations of these algorithms are developed and benchmarked against the base algorithms. These hybrid algorithms have been validated on twenty-four well-known unimodal and multimodal benchmarks functions, and detailed analysis with varying dimensions and population size is discussed for the same. Further, the efficacy of these algorithms has been tested on short-term electricity load and price forecasting applications. For this purpose, the algorithms have been combined with Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to evaluate their performance on the ISO New Pool England dataset. The results demonstrate that hybrid optimization algorithms perform superior to their base algorithms in most test cases. Furthermore, the results show that the performance of CSA-GWO is significantly better than other algorithms.