Optimal Reactive Power Management Problem: A Solution Using Evolutionary Algorithms

In a competitive electricity power market, reactive power planning (RPP) is a pivotal matter for the power system researchers from operational and economical view points. RPP is concerned with the installation or removal of reactive power equipment in power system. This article proposes an effective way to find out the optimal parameter settings related to the system active power loss as well as operational cost. Genetic Algorithm (GA)-based strategy is applied to determine the optimal values of reactive power generation of generators, size of shunt capacitors, transformer tap settings prior to minimizing the system operating cost due to active power loss, installation cost of shunt capacitors at the weak nodes, and the cost of line-charging elements. The proposed approach is applied to IEEE 30 and IEEE 57 bus test system. Finally, a comparative analysis has been done to validate the efficacy of GA-based approach with some well-established meta-heuristic algorithms.