The active-reactive - Complete dispatch of an electrical network

The industrialization and the growth of the population are the main factors, which increase the electricity consumption. This phenomenon comes with a deep restructuring of the electricity sector. Indeed, new constraints concerning reduction of the gas emissions and the use of renewable sources are imposed. The electric networks become more and more large and complex. The grid operation appears as non-linear problems, multi-objective, having a lot of variables and constraints. Complexity arises from the problem formulation and evolutionary algorithms appear as an efficient tool for the resolution. This paper presents three problems, which are related to the electric networks. The economic environmental dispatch (EED) problem consists to minimize the fuel cost and the gas emissions. The optimal reactive dispatch (RD) consists to minimize the active losses in the transmission lines, the voltage deviations and the cost of compensation devices. Finally the active, reactive and environmental dispatch problem (ARED) consists to minimize the cost of fuel, gas emissions and the active losses in the transmission lines. To solve these problems an Improving Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm (SPEA2) method is applied to the New-England Power System (39 buses, 10 thermal generators). The results demonstrate the ability of the proposed approach to find and maintain a diverse Pareto optimal solution in one single run. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.