  This paper considers the economic dispatch problem for a network of power
generators and customers. In particular, our aim is to minimize the total
generation cost under the power supply-demand balance and the individual
generation capacity constraints. This problem is solved in a distributed
manner, i.e., a dual gradient-based continuous-time distributed algorithm is
proposed in which only a single dual variable is communicated with the
neighbors and no private information of the node is disclosed. The proposed
algorithm is simple and no specific initialization is necessary, and this in
turn allows on-line change of network structure, demand, generation
constraints, and even the participating nodes. The algorithm also exhibits a
special behavior when the problem becomes infeasible so that each node can
detect over-demand or under-demand situation of the power network. Simulation
results on IEEE 118 bus system confirm robustness against variations in power
grids.
