A current trend in electric power industries is the deregulation around the world. One of the questions arise during any deregulation process is: where will be the future generation expansion? In the present paper, the study is concentrated on the wheeling computational method as a part of mega watt (MW) linear programming-based optimal power flow (LP-based OPF) method. To observe the effects of power wheeling on the power system operations, the paper uses linear interactive & discrete optimizer (LINDO) optimizer software as a powerful tool for solving linear programming problems to evaluate the influence of the power wheeling. As well, the paper uses the optimization tool to solve the economic generation dispatch and transmission management problems. The transmission line flow was taken in consideration with some constraints discussed in this paper. The complete linear model of the MW LP-based OPF, which is used to know the future generation potential areas in any utility is proposed. The paper also explains the available economic load dispatch (ELD) as the basic optimization tool to dispatch the power system. It can be concluded in the present study that accuracy is expensive in terms of money and time and in the competitive market enough accuracy is needed without paying much. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.