This document discusses economic dispatch in power systems. It begins by introducing the concept of economic dispatch and explaining that generators have different capital and operating costs depending on their technology. It then provides details on modeling the variable operating costs of thermal generators through input/output curves, fuel cost curves, heat rate curves and incremental cost curves. Examples are given of calculating the coal usage and costs for a generator, as well as determining the incremental costs of multiple generators to identify the lowest cost option for meeting demand. The goal of economic dispatch is to minimize total operating costs given the available generators.