The electric power industry is currently undergoing an unprecedented
reform. The deregulation of electricity supply industry has introduced
new opportunity for competition to reduce the cost and cut the price. It
is a tremendous challenge for utilities to maintain an economical and
reliable supply of electricity in such an environment. Faced by an
increasingly complicated existence, power utilities need efficient tools
and aids to ensure that electrical energy of the desired quality can be
provided at the lowest cost. The overall objective, both for short-term
and long-term operations, is then to find the best compromise between
the requirements of security and economy. That is, effective tools are
urgently required to solve highly constrained optimisation problems. In
recent years, several major modem optimisation techniques have been
applied to power systems. A large number of papers and reports have been
published. In this respect, it is timely to edit a book on this topic
with an aim to report the state of the art development internationally
in this area.