Modified Firefly Algorithm for Solving Multireservoir Operation in Continuous and Discrete Domains

Discussion of “Application of the Firefly Algorithm to Optimal Operation of Reservoirs with the Purpose of Irrigation Supply and Hydropower Production” by Irene Garousi-Nejad, Omid Bozorg-Haddad, Hugo A. Loáiciga, and Miguel A. Mariño

“…Table 1 indicates that the GA results are better than those of the FA. The same conclusion was made by Garousi-Nejad et al (2016). They investigated the performance of the FA and modified firefly algorithm (MFA) to solve the continuous 10-reservoir operation benchmark problem.…”

“…For example, the authors show in the original paper that the GA is unable to solve a simple twodimensional Rosenbrock function, but the FA can. Then, Garousi-Nejad et al (2016) show that the GA performs better than the FA in the complex continuous 10-reservoir problem. Empirical evidence provided in this discussion supports that the GA used in the original paper had not been tuned well in favor of getting the FA higher up the wall.…”

“…The differences between these various social insect algorithms proved marginal at best (Sörensen 2015). It has been proven that the FA is sensitive to its parameter selection, converges slowly, and gets trapped in local optimum points (Yang 2012;Gandomi et al 2013;Garousi-Nejad et al 2016). Accordingly, many studies have focused on overcoming these limitations (Yang 2012;Gandomi et al 2013;Kazem et al 2013;Wang et al 2016;Garousi-Nejad et al 2016), which shows that the FA's performance was insufficient.…”

Discussion of “Application of the Firefly Algorithm to Optimal Operation of Reservoirs with the Purpose of Irrigation Supply and Hydropower Production” by Irene Garousi-Nejad, Omid Bozorg-Haddad, Hugo A. Loáiciga, and Miguel A. Mariño

“…The claim of "superior performance" cannot be approved until demonstrating an algorithm's performance in discrete problems as well.Another issue is that the authors did not consider the carryover constraint for reservoir operation modeling. This constraint is generally defined in reservoir operation modeling and can be found in the papers by Garousi-Nejad and Bozorg-Haddad (2014), Garousi-Nejad et al (2016), andBozorg-Haddad et al (2015). used evolutionary and metaheuristic algorithms to solve reservoir operation problems because the classic methods are less complicated, and evolutionary or metaheuristic algorithms usually require more processing time to find a solution.…”

“…Another issue is that the authors did not consider the carryover constraint for reservoir operation modeling. This constraint is generally defined in reservoir operation modeling and can be found in the papers by Garousi-Nejad and Bozorg-Haddad (2014), Garousi-Nejad et al (2016), andBozorg-Haddad et al (2015).…”