The objective of the dynamic economic dispatch (DED) problem is to schedule power generation for the online units for a given time horizon economically, satisfying various operational constraints. Due to the effect of valve-point effects and prohibited operating zones (POZs) in the generating units cost functions, DED problem is a highly non-linear and non-convex optimization problem. The DED problem even may be more complicated if transmission losses and ramp-rate constraints are taken into account. This paper presents a novel and heuristic algorithm to solve DED problem of generating units, by employing time varying acceleration coefficients iteration particle swarm optimization (TVAC-IPSO) method. The effectiveness of the proposed method is examined and validated by carrying out extensive tests on different test systems, i.e. 5-unit and 10-unit test systems. Valve-point effects, POZs and ramp-rate constraints along with transmission losses are considered. To examine the efficiency of the proposed TVAC-IPSO algorithm, comprehensive studies are carried out, which compare convergence properties of the proposed TVAC-IPSO approach with conventional PSO algorithm, in addition to the other recently reported approaches. Numerical results show that the TVAC-IPSO method has good convergence properties and the generation costs resulted from the proposed method are lower than other algorithms reported in recent literature. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.