Marine predators algorithm for optimal allocation of active and reactive power resources in distribution networks

The principal motivation of the marine predators algorithm (MPA) is the common foraging technique, including Levy and Brownian motions in ocean predators coupled with optimal contact intensity policy in predator-prey biological interaction. This paper proposes an improved marine predators algorithm (IMPA), which is an extension of the original MPA. The suggested improvements lead to rapid convergence and avoid local minima stagnation for the original MPA. IMPA controls the active and reactive power injected into distribution systems to minimize the total system losses and the total voltage deviations and maximize the voltage stability and improve the distribution system's overall performance. On the one hand, the proposed IMPA determines the optimal location and active power (location and size, respectively) of distributed generation (DG). On the other hand, the IMPA controls reactive power by optimally placing and sizing the shunt capacitors (SCs) and determining the PF of DGs. Two standard test systems, 69-bus and 118-bus distribution networks, are considered to prove the proposed algorithm's efficiency and scalability. Results of the proposed IMPA are compared with those obtained by MPA, AEO, and PSO algorithms. The findings of the simulation results demonstrate that the proposed IMPA can effectively find the optimal problem solutions and beats the other algorithms. Moreover, the framework of multi-objective IMPA outperforms based on MPA in terms of the performance measures of diversity, spacing, coverage, and hypervolume.