P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al.

/ International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology

Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729
MULTI-OBJECTIVE GENETIC
ALGORITHM
FOR REACTIVE POWER
OPTIMIZATION INCLUSING
VOLTAGE STABILITY
P. Aruna Jeyanthy
EEE DEPT, N.I.C.E, Kumarakoil. TamilNadu, India,
arnadarwin@yahoo.com

D. Devaraj,
EEE DEPT, Kalasalingam University, TamilNadu, India,
deva230@yahoo.com

Abstract:
Reactive power optimization is a major concern in the operation and control of power systems. In this
paper a new multi-objective genetic algorithm method is applied to optimize the reactive power dispatch
problem. The objectives of the reactive power optimization problem are minimization of the losses and
maximization of the voltage stability margin. The proposed method expands the original GA to tackle the mixed
integer non linear optimization problem with continuous and discrete control variables such as generator
terminal voltages, tap position of transformers and reactive power sources. The optimization variables namely,
generator voltages, transformer ratios and reactive power sources are taken as floating point numbers in the
genetic population. For effective genetic operation, crossover and mutation operators which can directly operate
on floating numbers are used. Multi-objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) is applied to solve this reactive
power dispatch problem. The MOGA emphasize non-dominated solutions and simultaneously maintains
diversity in the non-dominated solutions. Thus this technique handles the problem as a true multi-objective
optimization problem. In accordance with this, a comparison is made for other evolutionary methods for the real
power losses and this method is found to be effective than other methods. The proposed approach has been
evaluated on the IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 57- bus test system, and the simulation results show the effectiveness of
this approach for solving the multi-objective reactive power optimization problems.

Keywords: Multiple objective genetic algorithm (MOGA); Pareto optimal frontier; Reactive power
optimization; Real power loss and Voltage stability margin (VSM)
1. Introduction:
Reactive power optimization is one of the difficult optimization problems in power system operation
and control. To improve the voltage profile and to decrease the active power losses along the transmission lines
under various operating conditions, power system operator can select a number of control tools such as
switching reactive power sources, charging generator voltages and adjusting transformer tap settings. The multi-
objective of this paper is to allocate reactive power sources so that the active power transmission loss is to be
minimized and the voltage stability margin is to be maximized, while satisfying the number of constraints [1].
Many conventional techniques such as gradient based search algorithms and various mathematical
programming methods are used for the reactive power optimization problems [2]. In the past decade, heuristic
methods [3] have been applied to solve the optimal VAR dispatch problem. These methods have many
drawbacks such as insecure convergence properties and algorithmic complexity. In general they are not able to
locate or identify the global optimum. The studies on evolutionary algorithms, over the past few years, have
shown that these methods can be efficiently used to eliminate most of the difficulties of classical methods [4-
5].When an optimization problem involves more than one objective function, the task of determining one or
more optimum solutions is known as multi-objective optimization. Because of the presence of conflicting
multiple objectives, a multi-objective optimization problem results in a number of optimal solutions, known as
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P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology
Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729
Pareto-optimal solutions. In a multi-objective optimization, effort must be made in determining the set of trade-
off optimal solutions by considering all objectives to be important.
There are two goals in a multi-objective optimization:
1. To find a set of solutions as close as possible to the Pareto-optimal front.
2. To find a set of solutions as diverse as possible
An interior point [6] is used to solve the reactive power optimization problem with a multi-objective function for
maximizing both social benefit and the distance to maximum loading conditions. In [7], linear programming
with bounded variables is used to obtain the optimal shift in power dispatch related to contingency states or
overload situations in power system operation and planning phases under various objectives such as economy,
reliability and environmental conditions. But, these conventional approaches are time consuming and tend to
find weak Pareto-optimal solutions. The ability of Evolutionary Computation techniques like genetic algorithm
to find multiple optimal solutions in one single simulation run makes them unique in solving multi-objective
optimization problems [8].
Voltage Stability is becoming an increasing source of concern in stability operation of present day
power systems. The problem of voltage instability is mainly considered as the inability of the network to meet
the load demand imposed interms of inadequate reactive power support or active power transmission capability
or both. Voltage collapse is a local load bus problem and depends mostly on load conditions in the system. Thus
the reactive power support and voltage problems are intrinsically related. Hence this paper formulates the
reactive power optimization as a multi-objective optimization problem with loss minimization and voltage
stability margin maximization objectives. The static voltage stability margin is primarily associated with the
reactive power support. Several tools have been presented in the literature for the analysis of the static voltage
stability of a system. Here the modal analysis is used as the indicator of voltage stability margin. This technique
provides voltage stability critical areas and gives information about the best corrective/preventive actions for
maximizing static voltage stability margins. It is done by evaluating the Jacobian matrix, the critical eigen
values/vector [9, 10].
Multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) [11] is applied for solving the multi-objective reactive
power optimization problem. This method was first introduced by Fonseca and Fleming (1993) [12]. Generally,
binary strings are used to represent the decision variables of the optimization problem in the genetic population
irrespective of the nature of the decision variables. This binary coded GA has Hamming cliff problems [13]
which sometimes may cause difficulties in the case of coding continuous variables. Also, for discrete variables
with total number of permissible choices not equal to 2
k
(where k is an integer) it becomes difficult to use a fixed
length binary coding to represent all permissible values. This problem is one of the combinatorial optimization
problems with multi- extremism and non-linear property. To overcome the difficulties, in this paper, the
optimization variables namely, generator voltages, transformer ratios and VARS are taken as floating numbers
in the genetic population. For effective genetic operation, crossover and mutation operators which can directly
operate on floating numbers are used. The effectiveness and potential of the proposed approach to solve the
multi-objective reactive power optimization problem has been evaluated using IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 57-bus
systems.

2. Problem formulation:
Power systems are expected to operate economically (minimize losses) and technically (good
stability).Therefore reactive power optimization is formulated as a multi-objective search which includes the
technical and economic functions.

2.1 Economic function:
The economic function is mainly to minimize the active power transmission loss and it is
stated as [14]
F
1
= Minimize
loss
P =

e
+
E
N k
ij j i j i k
V V V V g ) cos 2 (
2 2
u (1)
The reactive power optimization problem is subjected to the following constraints.
Equality Constraints:
These constraints represent load flow equation such as

=
+ =
1
) sin cos (
j
ij ij ij ij j i Di Gi
B G V V P P u u 1 , 2 , 1 =
B
N i (2)
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P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology
Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729

=
=
1
) cos sin (
j
ij ij ij ij j i Di Gi
B G V V Q Q u u
PQ
N i , 2 , 1 = (3)
The equality constraints are satisfied by running the power flow program.

Inequality constraints:
These constraints represent the system operating constraints. Generator terminal bus voltages, transformers tap
setting, reactive power generated by the capacitor bank is control variables and they are self restricted by the
optimization algorithm. The active power generation at the slack bus , load bus voltages, reactive power
generation and line flow limit are state variables .The state variables are satisfied by adding a penalty terms in
the objective function. These constraints are formulates as:
Voltage constraints:

max min
i i i
V V V s s

B
N i e (4)
Transformer tap-setting limit:

max min
k k k
T T T s s

T
N k e (5)
Generator reactive power capability limit:

max min
Gi Gi
Q Q Q
Gi
s s

G
N i e (6)
Capacitive reactive power capability limit:

C Ci Ci Ci
N i Q Q Q e s s
max min
(7)
Transmission line flow limit:

max
l l
S S s

l
N l e (8)

Where
G
V is the generator voltage magnitude at bus i (continuous)

k
T is the transformer tap setting (integer)

c
Q is the shunt capacitor/ inductor (integer)

L
V is the load bus voltage

G
Q is the generator reactive power

k
g i B
N J N i j i k
,
, ), , ( e e = is the conductance of branch k

ij
u is the voltage angle difference between bus i and j

Gi
P is the injected active power at bus i

Di
P is the demanded active power at bus i

ij
G is the transfer conductance between bus i and j

ij
B is the transfer susceptance between bus I and j

Gi
Q is the injected reactive power at bus i

Di
Q is the demanded reactive power at bus i
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P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology
Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729

E
N is the set of numbers of network branches

PQ
N is the set of number of PQ buses

B
N is the set of numbers of total buses

i
N is the set of numbers of buses adjacent to bus i (including bus i )

c
N is the set of numbers of possible reactive power source installation buses

T
N is the set of numbers of transformer branches

l
S is the power flow in branch l
The subscripts min and max in Eq. (4-8) denote the corresponding lower and upper limits
respectively.

2.2 Technical function:
The technical function is to minimize the bus voltage deviation from the ideal voltage and to improve
the voltage stability margin (VSM) and it is stated as [15]
F
2
= Max VSM= Max(min|eig(jacobi)|) (9)
Where jacobi is the load flow jacobian matrix , eig (jacobi) returns all the eigen values of the Jacobian
matrix, min(eig(Jacobi)) is the minimum value of eig (Jacobi) , Max ( min ( eig (Jacobi))) is to maximize the
minimal eigen value in the Jacobian matrix.

2.3 Multi-objective function:
Aggregating the objectives and constraints, the problem can be mathematically formulated as a non
linear constrained multi-objective optimization problem as follows:
Minimize F= [F
1
, F2] (10)
Subject to the constraints (2) (9)
3. Multi-objective Genetic Algorithm :
3.1 Overview:
Genetic Algorithms [16] are generalized search algorithms based on the mechanics of natural genetics. GA
maintains a population of individuals that represent the candidate solutions to the given problem. Each
individual in the population is evaluated to give some measure to its fitness to the problem from the objective
function. Genetic Algorithms combine solution evaluation with stochastic operators namely, selection, crossover
and mutation to obtain optimality. Being a population based approach, GA is well suited to solve multi-
objective optimization problems.

Many real world problems involve simultaneous optimization of several objective functions. Generally,
these objective functions are non-commensurable and often conflicting [17]. Multi-objective optimization with
such conflicting objective functions give rise to a set of optimal solutions, instead of one optimal solution. The
reason for the optimality of many solutions is that no one can be considered to be better than any other with
respect to all objective functions. These optimal solutions are known as Pareto-optimal solutions. A set of
Pareto solutions is called Pareto-set and its image on the objective space is called Pareto-front. A dominated
solution contained within a problem search space is a solution that is inferior to at least one other solution with
respect to all defined objectives. Non-dominated solutions are said to be Pareto Optimal solutions. The set of all
non-dominated solutions form the Pareto Frontier which depicts the optimal tradeoffs that exist between
competing objectives. There are different approaches to solve multi-objective optimization problems e.g.,
aggregating, population based non-Pareto, and Pareto-based techniques. In aggregating techniques, the different
objectives are generally combined into one using weighting or goal-based method. Vector evaluated genetic
algorithm (VEGA) is a technique in the population-based non-Pareto approach in which different
subpopulations are used for the different objectives. Multiple objective GA (MOGA), non-dominated sorting
GA (NSGA), and niched Pareto GA (NPGA) constitute a number of techniques under the Pareto-based non-
elitist approaches [18-19].

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P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology
Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729
The present paper implements MOGA as the multi-objective optimization algorithm. The MOGA differs
from the standard GA in the way fitness is assigned to each solution in the population. The rest of the algorithm
is similar to the original GA. Figure: 1 below shows the MOGA algorithm. MOGA is a commonly used multi-
objective optimization technique well suited to solve highly constrained optimization problems. At its heart, the
MOGA is essentially a simple genetic algorithm tuned to solve multi-objective problems. The proposed
optimization algorithm is based on MOGA, since it is the efficient and most simple method in the evolutionary
algorithms. Here the fitness value of an individual is proportional to the number of other individual it dominates.



















































Figure: 1 Flow chart of MOGA Algorithm

Initialize the population
Run the load flow program
Evolution (fitness assignment)
Set i=1
Selection, crossover and mutation
Form the new population
Run the load flow program
Evolution (Fitness Assignment)
Meeting the
stopping rule
Output
i=i+1
No
Yes
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P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology
Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729
3.2 Algorithm of MOGA:
In MOGA, first each solution is checked for its domination in the population. To a solution i,a rank
equal to one plus the number of solutions that dominate solution i is assigned .In this way, non-dominated
solutions are assigned a rank equal to 1, since no solution would dominates a non-dominated solution in a
population. Once the ranking is performed, a raw fitness to a solution is assigned based on its rank. To perform
this, first the ranks are sorted in ascending order of magnitude. Then a raw fitness is assigned to each solution by
using a linear (or any other) mapping function. Usually, the mapping function is chosen so as to assign fitness
between N (for the best rank solution) and 1 (for the worst rank solution).Thereafter, solutions of each rank are
considered at a time and their raw fitnesses are averaged. This average fitness is now called the assigned fitness
to each solution of the rank. This emphasizes non-dominated solutions in the population. In order to maintain
diversity among non-dominated solutions, niching among solutions of each rank are introduced.
The algorithm used in MOGA is as follows:
Step 1 Set i=1 .Initialize 0 ) ( = j for all possible ranks j= 1, 2, N.
Step 2 Calculate the number of solutions (n
i
) that dominate solution i. Compute the rank of the
i
-th
solution as r
i
=1+ n
i
. Increment the count for the number of solutions in rank r
i
by
one, that is . 1 ) ( ) ( + =
i i
r r
Step 3 If i<N, increment i by one and go to step 1. Otherwise go to step 4.
Step 4 Identify the maximum rank r* by checking the largest r
i
which has . 0 (
)
>
i
r the sorting
according to rank and fitness averaging yields the following assignment of the average
fitness to any solution i=1, N.

=
=
1
1
) 1 ) ( ( 5 . 0 ) (
i
r
k
i i
r k N F (11)
Step 5 For each solution i in rank r, calculate the niche count nc
i
with other solutions of the
same rank using equation (16) - (18).

=
=
) (
1
) (
i
r
j
ij i
d Sh nc

(12)
Where ) (
i
r is the number of solutions in rank
i
r
sharing function is

s
=
otherwise
d if
d
d Sh
share ij
share
ij
ij
0
) ( 1
) (
o
o
o
(13)


share
o is the maximum distance allowed between any two individuals to become a
number of niche . o is a scaling factor less than or equal to 1.

ij
d is the normalized distance between two solutions i and j

2
1
1
2
min max
) ( ) (
) (
(
(

=

=
M
k k k
j
k
i
k
ij
f f
f f
d (14)
where f
k
max
and f
k
min
are the maximum and minimum objective function value of the k
th
objective. The
shared function takes a value in [0, 1] depending on the values of d
ij
and
share
.The shared fitness value
is calculated by dividing the assigned fitness to a solution by its niche count. Although all solutions of
any particular rank have the identical fitness, the shared fitness value of a solution residing in a less
crowded region has a better shared fitness. This produces a large selection pressure for poorly
represented solutions in any rank.
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Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729
Calculate the shared fitness using
j
j
j
nc
F
F =
'
. To preserve the same average fitness, scale the shared
fitness as follows:

'
) (
1
'
'
) (
j
r
k
k
j
j
F
F
r F
F

(15)

Step 6 If r < r*, increment r by one and go to step 5. Otherwise the process is complete. Thus the procedure is
continued until all ranks are processed. Thereafter, selection, crossover and mutation operators are
applied to create a new population.
Based on the above algorithm steps the ranking, fitness and sharing the fitness are computed. Here dividing
the assigned fitness values by the niche count reduces the fitness of each solution. In order to keep the
average fitness of the solutions in a rank the same as that before sharing, these fitness values are scaled
so that their average shared fitness value is the same as the average assigned fitness value. After these
calculations, the solution to the next rank is executed. Thus this process is repeated until all the ranks
are processed. Then the stochastic universal selection with shared fitness values, crossover and the
mutation operators are created to a new population.

4. Implementation of Multi-objective Genetic Algorithm:
When applying MOGA for solving reactive power optimization problem, the following issues need to be
addressed:
(1) Solution Representation
(2) Fitness evaluation and
(3) Application of genetic operators

4.1: Solution Representation:
Implementation of GA for a problem starts with the parameter encoding (i.e. the representation of
the problem). Each individual in the genetic population represents a candidate solution. The elements of the
solution consist of all the decision variables in the system.Figure:2 represent the elements of the solution. The
decision variables of the reactive power optimization problem include generator bus voltage magnitude,
transformer tap settings and reactive power sources. The solution variables are represented as floating point
numbers. With direct representation of the solution variables, the computer memory required to store the
population is reduced.

v1 v2 vg T1 T2 .. Tt 1 2 .. t
Elements of the solution

Figure 2: Representation of elements of the solution of a MOGA
The length of the elements is equal to the total number of control variables. Here the generator terminal
voltages and the transformer tap setting are used as the control variables. These variables are represented in the
natural form. With this mixed form of representation, a typical chromosome of the reactive power optimization
problem looks like the following:

k k
k
Gn
G G T T T
V
V V

8 1 2 8 1 3 05 . 1 970 . 0 981 . 0
2 2 1
2 1


The use of floating numbers in MOGA representation has a number of advantages like lesser memory
requirement and no loss in precision by discrimination to binary or other values.


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Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729
4.2: Evaluation Function:
The power system operator has the control to vary a few variables in the system only. Some of these
independent variables called control variables will be represented as the solution variables in the population.
From these candidate solutions (control variables), the dependent variables (state variables) of the system have
to be derived and those candidate solutions which result in violation of upper or lower limits of the state
variables have to be penalized to discourage the infeasible solutions. GA searches for the optimal solution by
maximizing a given fitness function, and therefore an evaluation function which provides a measure of the
quality of the problem solution must be provided. In the reactive power optimization problem under
consideration, the objective is to minimize the losses and maximize the voltage stability margin satisfying the
constraints. The equality constraints are satisfied by running the power flow program. Generator terminal bus
voltages, transformers tap setting, reactive power generated by the capacitor bank is control variables and they
are self restricted by the optimization algorithm. The active power generation at the slack bus , load bus
voltages, reactive power generation and line flow limit are state variables .The state variables are satisfied by
adding a penalty terms in the objective function. With the inclusion of the penalty function, the new multi-
objective objective function with the economic and technical function from equation (10) is generalized as
follows:


=
+ A + A + + =
lim lim
1
1
2
max
2 2
) ( max min
V Q
N N
N
L
i i s G Q L v loss
S S Q V VSM P imize f
(16)
where
Q v
, ,
s
are the penalty factors.
lim
V
N is the set of numbers of load buses on which voltage outside
limits .
lim
Q
N is the set of number of generator buses on which injected reactive power outside limits .
L
V A and
A
G
Q are defined as:

{
min min
max max
L L L L
L L L L
V V if V V
V V if V V
L
V
<
>
= A
(17)


{
min min
max max
G G G G
G G G G
Q Q if Q Q
Q Q if Q Q
G
Q
<
>
= A
(18)

Thus MOGA is usually designed to maximize the fitness function, which is a measure of the quality of each
candidate solution. Hence in this work, the fitness is taken as the inverse of the new objective function.

4.3: Genetic Operators:
4.3.1: Selection Strategy:

Selection plays an important role in GA, it determines the direction of search in the search space. It
emphasizes good solutions and eliminates bad solutions while keeping the population size constant. The goal is
to allow the fittest individuals to be selected more often to reproduce. In this work we use tournament
selection for this purpose. In tournament selection,n individuals are selected at random from the population,
and the best of the n is inserted into the new population foe further genetic processing. This procedure is
repeated until the matting pool is filled. Tournaments are often held between pairs of individuals (tournament
size-2), although larger tournaments can be used.


4.3.2: Crossover:

The crossover operator is a method for sharing information between chromosomes. Generally, it
combines the features of two parent chromosomes to form two offspring, with the possibility that good
chromosomes may generate better ones. In this work, BLX- crossover is applied on the selected individuals.
Figure: 3 illustrate the BLX- crossover operation for the one dimensional case. In this figure, u1 and u2 are the
selected individuals and u
min
and u
max
are selected variables lower and upper limit respectively
.
ISSN: 0975-5462 2722
P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology
Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729

Figure 3: Representation of BLX- Crossover
In the BLX- crossover, the offspring (y) is sampled from the space [e
1
, e
2
] as follows:
y =
( )

s s +
otherwise sampling repeat
u y u if e e r e
;
;
max min
1 2 1
(19)

where ,
e
1
=u
1
-(u
2
-u
1
) and e
2
=u
1+
(u
2
-u
1
) and
r = uniform random number e[0 1]
For two parent solutions u
1
and u
2
(assuming u
1
<u
2
) BLX- randomly picks new solutions in the range [e
1,
e
2
].
It is to be noted that e
1
and e
2
will lie between u
min
and u
max
, the variables lower and upper bound respectively.
In a number of test problems, the investigators have observed that = 0.5 provides good results. In this
crossover operator the location of the off spring depends on the difference in parent solutions. If both parents are
close to each other, the new point will also be close to the parents. On the other hand, if the parents are far from
each other, the search is more like a random search. This property of a search operator allows us to constitute an
adaptive search.
4.3.3: Mutation:
The mutation operator is used to inject new genetic material into the population. Mutation changes
randomly the new offspring. In this work, Non Uniform Mutation operator is applied to the mixed variables
with some modifications. First a variable is selected from an individual randomly. If the selected variable is u
k

with the range |u
k
min ,
u
k
max
| , two random numbers are generated and the result u
1
k
is calculated as

( )
( )

>
|
|
.
|

\
|

s
|
|
.
|

\
|
+
=
|
.
|

\
|
|
.
|

\
|
5 . 0 1 .
5 . 0 1 .
1
1
1 min
1
1
1 max
1
r if r u u u
r if r u u u
u
q
q
M
p
k
k k
M
p
k
k
k
k

(20)

Where p is the generation

number, q is a non uniform mutation parameter and M is the maximum
generation number. If the selected variable is an integer then the randomly generated floating point number is
truncated to the nearest integer. After mutation, the new generation is complete and the algorithm begins again
with the fitness evaluation of the population.

5. Simulation results:
The proposed MOGA approach for solving the reactive power optimization was applied to IEEE 30-bus and
IEEE 57-bus test system. The real power settings are taken from [20-21]. The proposed algorithm was run with
I
u
max
e2
u2 u1
e1
u
min
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P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology
Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729
minimization of real power loss and maximization of voltage stability margin as the objectives. To demonstrate
the effectiveness of the proposed approach, three different cases have been considered as follows:

Case 1: Multi-objective reactive power optimization for voltage stability margin in IEEE 30-bus system.
Case 2: Multi-objective reactive power optimization for voltage stability margin in IEEE 57-bus system.
Case 3: Contingency constrained reactive power optimization for IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 57-bus system.

Case 1: Multi-objective reactive power optimization for voltage stability margin in IEEE 30-bus system:

The IEEE 30 bus system has 6 generator buses,24 load buses and 41 transmission lines of which four
branches are (6-9),(6,10),(4,12) and (28-27) are with tap setting transformers. This is shown in figure: 4, the
upper and lower voltage limits at all buses except slack bus are taken as 1.10 p.u and 0.95 p.u respectively. The
slack bus voltage is fixed to its specified value of 1.06 p.u. Generator terminal voltages, transformer tap settings
and reactive power sources were taken as the optimization variables. The possible locations for reactive power
sources are buses 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24 and 29. The optimization variables are represented as a mixture
of floating point numbers in the MOGA population. The initial population was randomly generated between the
variables lower and upper limits. Tournament selection was applied to select the members of the new
population. Blend crossover and uniform mutation were applied on the selected individuals. The performance of
MOGA generally depends on the MOGA parameter used, in particular, the crossover and mutation probabilities
respectively. The performance of MOGA for various crossover and mutation probabilities in the range 0.6-0.9
and 0.001-0.01 respectively was therefore evaluated. It was applied by considering several sets of parameters
inorder to prove its capability to provide acceptable trade-offs close to the Pareto optimal front. The optimal
settings of the MOGA were obtained by the following parameters are given below:
Generations : 50
Population size: 50
Crossover rate: 0.8
Mutation rate: 0.01
Variable : 19
It is worth mentioning that the proposed approach produces nearly 15 Pareto optimal solutions in a
single run that have satisfactory diversity characteristics and span over the entire Pareto optimal front. Figure: 5
represent the Pareto-optimal front curve. From the Pareto front, two optimal solutions which are the extreme
points of figure: 5 represent the minimum real power loss and maximum voltage stability margin. The optimal
values of the control variable are given in Table: 1. The minimum loss obtained by the proposed algorithm is
compared with other evolutionary methods and the results are presented in Table: 5. The minimum loss obtained
by this method is less than the other methods. This shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach in solving
the reactive power optimization problem.


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Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729

Figure: 4 IEEE 30 bus systems

Table I Pareto optimal solutions of control variables for IEEE 30 bus system

Control variables Minimum real power loss solution Maximum voltage stability margin solution
V1
V2
V5
V8
V11
V13
T11
T12
T15
T36
QC10
QC12
QC15
QC17
QC20
QC21
QC23
QC24
QC29
Real Power Loss
VSM
0.9554
0.9695
1.0151
0.9531
0.9985
0.9585
1.05
1.05
1.1
1.1750
2
2
4
4
0
3
1
5
2
4.483
0.1872
0.9667
0.9567
0.9790
0.9512
0.9720
0.9949
1.025
1.1
1.750
1.0750
0
1
0
0
5
6
0
2
4
3.235
0.205

ISSN: 0975-5462 2725
P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology
Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729

Figure 5 Pareto-optimal front using MOGA for IEEE 30 bus system

Case 2: Multi-objective reactive power optimization for voltage stability margin in IEEE 57-bus system:
The IEEE 57-bus system has 7 generators, 50 load buses, 80 transmission lines of which 17 branches
are with tap setting transformers. The placements of reactive power sources for installation are buses 25, 30, 32,
34, 35 and 53 to supply reactive power. The MOGA algorithm was tested with different parameter settings and
the best results are obtained with the following setting:
Generations : 50
Population size : 50
Crossover rate : 0.8
Mutation rate : 0.01
Variable : 29
The optimal values and the Pareto front diagram are shown in Table: III and figure: 6 respectively. The
algorithm reaches a minimum loss of 25.667 MW. The loss obtained by the proposed algorithm is compared
with evolutionary computations. The loss obtained is less than the value reported in [22].This shows the
effectiveness of the proposed approach in solving the reactive power optimization.

Table III Optimal control variables in IEEE 57 bus system

Control Variables Variable Setting Variable Setting including the VSM
VI
V2
V3
V6
V8
V9
V12
T19
0.9421
1.0232
0.9638
0.9512
1.0639
0.9410
0.9880
0.9508
0.9451
1.0161
0.9968
0.9965
0.9575
0.9810
0.9516
0.9491
ISSN: 0975-5462 2726
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Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729
T20
T31
T35
T36
T37
T41
T46
T54
T58
T59
T65
T66
T71
T73
T76
T80
Q30
Q32
Q31
Q33
Q34
Real power Loss
VSM
1.1
1.0250
1.0740
0.95
1.0250
1.0772
1.1951
1.0577
1.0163
1.0934
0.9755
1.0834
1
1.0063
0.9501
0.9697
0
0
1
0
5
25.5667
0.1256
1.05
0.9
1.1281
0.9789
0.9244
1.0250
1.0956
1.0573
1.0892
0.9
0.9990
1.0847
0.9750
0.9807
1.0014
1.0287
4
3
1
1
0
25.6507
0.1297




Figure 4 Pareto-optimal front using MOGA for IEEE 57 bus system

ISSN: 0975-5462 2727
P. Aruna Jeyanthy et. al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology
Vol. 2 (7), 2010, 2715-2729
Case 3: Contingency constrained reactive power optimization for IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 57-bus system:
In case 1 and case 2, the proposed MOGA algorithm is applied to minimize the real power losses and
to maximize the voltage stability margin without including the contingency constraint. To access the voltage
security of the system, contingency analysis was conducted using the control variable setting obtained in case 1
and case 2.From the contingency analysis, the line outages 28-27, 1-2, 4-12 ,3-4 are identified as the most severe
critical lines in IEEE 30-bus system. Similarly the lines 25-30, 34-32, 37-38 are identified as most severe in
IEEE 57-bus system .The maximum voltage stability margin values corresponding to these contingencies are
given in Table 3 and Table 4. From this result it is observed that the minimum eigen value has increased
appreciably for all contingencies in the second case (MOGA-VSM).This shows that the proposed algorithm has
helped to improve the voltage security of the system.
Table 2 contingency analysis for IEEE 30 bus system:

Line VSM MOGA-VSM
28-27
1-2
4-12
3-4
0.0704
0.0926
0.1254
0.1436
0.0931
0.0951
0.1293
0.1474

Table IV contingency analysis for IEEE 57 bus system:
Line VSM MOGA-VSM
25-30
34-32
37-38
0.0049
0.0017
0.0239
0.1298
0.0092
0.0137

Table V Comparison of optional result obtained by different methods for
IEEE 30 bus and IEEE 57 bus system
No Evolutionary methods Minimum power loss (MW)

1
2
3

4
IEEE 30 bus
Evolutionary programming [23]
Simple GA [3]
Real coded GA [1]
IEEE 57 bus
Genetic Algorithm [23]

5.0159
4.98
4.568

25.9654

6. Conclusion
This paper presents a MOGA algorithm approach to obtain the optimum values of the reactive power
variables including the voltage stability constraint. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated on
IEEE-30 and IEEE-57 bus system with promising results. The performance of the proposed algorithm is
demonstrated through its voltage stability enhancement by modal analysis. From this multi-objective reactive
power optimization solution, the application of MOGA has performed well when it was used to characterize
Pareto optimal front and leads to global search with fast convergence rate and a feature of robust computation.
From the simulation work, it is concluded that MOGA performs better results than other evolutionary methods.
This approach is found to generate high quality solutions with more stable convergence than simple genetic
algorithms.

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