This paper presents an improved dynamic programming (IDP) approach to solve the economic power dispatch problem including transmission losses in power systems. A detailed mathematical derivation of recursive dynamic programming approach for the economic power dispatch problem with transmission losses is presented. The transmission losses are augmented with the objective function using price factor. The generalized expression for optimal scheduling of thermal generating units derived in this article can be implemented for the solution of the economic power dispatch problem of a large-scale system. Six-unit, fifteen-unit, and forty-unit sample systems with non-linear characteristics of the generator, such as ramp-rate limits and prohibited operating zones are considered to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed method results have been compared with the results of genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization methods reported in the literature. Test results show that the proposed IDP approach can obtain a higher quality solution with better performance.