The modern power system around the world has grown in complexity of interconnection and power demand. The focus has shifted towards enhanced performance, low cost, reliable and clean power. In this changed perspective, scarcity of energy resources and increasing power generation cost necessitates optimal economic load dispatch (ELD). The main objective of the economic load dispatch problem is to determine the optimal combination of power outputs of all generating units so as to meet the

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... demand at minimum cost while satisfying the constraints. Over the past decade, in order to solve economic load dispatch problem, many salient methods have been developed such as hierarchical numerical method, genetic algorithm, evolutionary programming, neural network approaches, differential evolution, particle swarm optimization, and the hybrid methods. In this paper hybrid Simplex method is applied to solve ELD problem, which is a local search method combined with random exploitation of the worst point. Modifications in the simplex method are made by adding random exploitation of the worst point and by using multiple simplexes instead of a single simplex. The promising result on the benchmark function shows the applicability of the method for solving ELD problem. The test results obtained for three and six generator system prove the authentication of the method.