Abstract This dissertation presents a new algorithm by integrating evolutionary programming (EP), tabu search (TS) and quadratic programming (QP), named the evolutionary-tabu quadratic programming (ETQ) method, to solve the nonconvex economic dispatch problem (NED). This problem involves the economic dispatch with valve-point effects (EDVP), economic dispatch with piecewise quadratic cost function (EDPQ), and economic dispatch with prohibited operating zones (EDPO). EDPV, EDPQ and EDPO are similar problems when ETQ was employed. The problem was solved in two phases, the cost-curve-selection subproblem, and the typical ED solving subproblem. The first phase was resolved by using a hybrid EP and TS, and the second phase by QP. In the solving process, EP with repairing strategy was used to generate feasible solutions, TS was used to prevent prematurity, and QP was used to enhance the performance. Numerical results show that the proposed method is more effective than other previously developed evolutionary computation algorithms.