Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 277±283

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijepes

A Cauchy-based evolution strategy for solving the reactive

power dispatch problem
J.R. Gomes, O.R. Saavedra 1,*
Departamento de Engenharia de Eletricidade, Grupo de Sistemas de Energia Eletrica, Universidade Federal do MaranhaÄo, Sao Luis 65085-580 MA, Brazil
Received 27 November 2000; accepted 26 March 2001

Abstract
In this work is presented a new proposal for solving the reactive power dispatch. The approach is based on the …m 1 l†-ES paradigm
improved by the control of mutations and by using of Cauchy-based mutation rather than the classical Gaussian Mutations (GMs). Others
variants are also implemented and a comparative study are performed. Good and reliable performance have been achieved and validation
tests using the standard IEEE118 system are reported. q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Evolutionary computation; Reactive dispatch; Optimization; Artifcial intelligence; Cauchy distribution

1. Introduction Evolution Strategies (ES) and Evolutionary Programming

Darwin's theory of natural selection is considered as the
fundamental unifying theory of life. Evolution refers to
temporal changes of any kind, whereas natural selection
speci®es one particular way in which these changes are
brought about [1]. Natural selection is the most important
agent of evolutionary change because it involves the
confront between organisms and their environment. Classic
Darwin's theory combined with the selectionism of Weis-
mann and the genetics of Mendel are accepted set of argu-
ments universally known as the 2 neo-Darwinian paradigm
[2]. This paradigm states that the history of the vast majority
of life is fully accounted for by only a very few statistical
processes acting on and within population and species [3].
These processes are reproduction, mutation, competition
and selection. The optimization tendency of evolutionary
processes has been motivated the formulation of approaches
that emulate these mechanisms in a crude form. Particularly,
the results obtained from application of simulated evolution
for solving complex engineering problems have evidenced
that search processes based on natural evolution are robust,
and can be used to solve optimization problems in a vast
domain variety [4,6].
There are three main approaches where the majority of
current implementations are classi®ed: Genetic Algorithms,
* Corresponding author. Fax: 155-98-217-8241.
E-mail address: osvaldo@dee.ufma.br (O.R. Saavedra).
1
www.dee.ufma.br.
0142-0615/02/$ - see front matter q 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0142- 061 5( 01) 00039-4
(EP).
Each of these main stream algorithms have clearly
demonstrated their capability to yield good approximate
solutions even in case of complicated multimodal, discon-
tinuous, non-differentiable, noisy or moving response
surfaces of optimization problems [7]. In these approaches,
a population of individuals is initialized and then evolves
into a search space, throughout a stochastic process of selec-
tion, mutation, and in some cases, recombination. However,
these methods differ in terms of representation, operators
and selection process.
While Genetic Algorithms emphasize chromosomal
operators based on genetic mechanisms, i.e. crossover and
mutation, ES and EP emphasize behavioral links between
parents and offspring. In particular, ES emphasize
behavioral changes at the level of the individual and EP
stresses behavioral change at the level of the species [6].
The original EP was introduced by Fogel in 1962 [12] and
extended by Burgin, Atmar e Fogel, recently [4]. The goal
of EP is to achieve intelligent behavior through simulated
evolution. While the original EP was proposed to operate on
®nite machines and the corresponding discrete representa-
tions, most of present variants are utilized for continuous
parameter optimization problems.
More recently, the technique has been extended and
applied to diverse real-valued continuous optimization
problems. Rather than use ®nite state machines, representa-
tions are chosen based on the problem on hand and mutation
is the main operator used in generating new trials. The last
278 J.R. Gomes, O.R. Saavedra / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 277±283
version, called meta-EP incorporates parameter self-
adaptation per individual quite similar to ES [5].
ES were developed in 1960 by Rechemberg and Schwefel
in Germany and extended by other authors, such as Rudolph
[9] and Herdy [10]. Early ES were mainly applied to solve
various optimization problems with continuously change-
able parameters. The ®rst ES versions operated on the
basis of two three individuals only (one parent Ð one
offspring), using mutation as the only recombination
operator.
1.1. Evolutionary techniques in reactive optimization
The algorithms based on the principles of the natural
evolution have been applied successfully to solve compli-
cated problems of optimization, such as those found in
reactive optimization, distribution systems planning,
expansion of transmission systems, etc. Literature presents
an extensive list of works of the application of evolutionary
techniques to power system problems [13±17,18].
Lai and Ma [13] have presented a modi®ed EP to solve
the reactive power dispatch, obtaining good results. Other
authors [15,16] have applied the same algorithm for other
power system problems, reporting results using the IEEE30
system. A simpli®ed ES has been used in Ref. [16] and
compared with genetic algorithms and Lai and Ma
algorithm. In Ref. [17], a proposal quite similar to Ref.
[13] has been presented.
More recently, an evolution strategy-based approach has
been proposed and compared with proposal of Lai and Ma
[22]. The self-adaptation of parameters is controlled by
dynamic limits and no recombination is performed. Due to
the probabilistic nature of the evolutionary algorithms, a
comparative statistical analysis has been performed. The
approach has been tested using the IEEE57 system, achiev-
ing feasible solution with losses reduction with probability
1.
In spite of these efforts, evolutionary techniques have not
yet been explored completely for power system applica-
tions. Algorithms that meet high quality solutions with
few computational effort are expected, and intensive efforts
are addressed towards this goal.
1.2. This paper
In the classical ES, an individual is mutated by adding of
a Gaussian number with a mean of zero and standard devia-
tion s (Gaussian mutation, GM). On the other hand, for
practical applications, simulated evolution-based methods
are high CPU time-consumers. An attempt to introduce
improvement in the convergence rate was proposed in
Ref. [20]. In this approach, Yin et al. replaced GM by
Cauchy-based mutation on a …m 1 l†-Evolution Strategy
without recombination. They carried out many empirical
studies with both GM and Cauchy mutation (CM) using
several applications. Notice that variance of Cauchy distri-
bution is in®nite, allowing to expect mutation values greater
than the obtained with Gaussian distribution and increasing
the probability of escaping from a local optimum. The bene-
®cial effect of augmenting the variance has been observed in
other algorithms [19,20,23].
In this work is presented a new proposal for solving the
reactive power dispatch. The approach is based on the
…m 1 l†-ES paradigm improved by the control of mutations
and by using the Cauchy-based mutation rather than the
classical GMs. Others variants are also included, and
validation test using the standard IEEE118 bus system are
reported.
This article is organized as follows. First, ES, and
Cauchy-based mutation are reviewed. Secondly, the
proposed approach and some variants are presented. Next,
validation tests and comparative analysis are performed.
Finally, relevant conclusions and comments are presented.
2. Optimal reactive power dispatch
The goal of optimal reactive power dispatch is to mini-
mize real power losses and improve voltage pro®le by
setting generator bus voltages, VAR compensators and
transformer taps. The problem can be written in a form
penalized as follows:
Min f ˆ f ` 1 fp …1†
s.t.:
Pdi 2 Pi …V; u† ˆ 0; i [ NB21 …2†
Qdi 2 Qi …V; u† ˆ 0; i [ NPQ …3†
with
X X
fp ˆ rqi …Qgi 2 Qlgi †2 1 rvi …Vi 2 Vil †2 …4†
i[NPV i[NPQ
where f` represents the system losses; NB, NB21 represent the
system nodes set, and the system nodes set excluding the
slack bus, respectively. NPQ, NPV represent the PQ-buses and
PV-buses set, respectively. Eqs. (2) and (3) represent the
load ¯ow equations. The generator bus voltages and the
transformer tap-settings are control variables. r qi and r vi
are penalty factors for reactive power violations and voltage
violations, respectively. Qlgi and Vil represent the violated
limits. Pdi 2 Qdi represent the active and reactive power
demand at node i, respectively. Penalty parameters are
chosen empirically in accord with experience and the
particular application.
3. Evolution strategies
In ES, the components of a trial solution are viewed as
behavioral traits of an individual, not as genes along a
chromosome. It is supposed a genetic source for these traits,
but the nature of the linkage is not detailed. Thus, an
individual is represented as a pair of ¯oat-valued vectors,
 J.R. Gomes, O.R. Saavedra / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 277±283
i.e. a ˆ …x; s†; where x represents a point in the search
space. The second is the vector of standard deviations and
provides instructions on how to mutate a and is itself
subject to mutation. In other words, both components, x
and s , are submitted to evolution process by application
of the operators of mutation and also recombination.
Thus, a suitable adjustment and diversity of para-
meter mutations should be provided under arbitrary
circumstances.
The ®rst ES are focused on a single-parent offspring
search [11]. In this model, termed …1 1 1†-ES, a single
offspring is created for a single parent and both are placed
in competition for survival with selection discarding the
poorer solution. Rechemberg proposed in 1973 the use of
multiple parent but only a single offspring …m 1 1†-ES.
More recently, two approaches have been explored, denoted
by …m 1 l†-ES and …m; l†-ES [8]. In the former, m parents
generate l offspring and all solutions compete for survival
with the best m individuals being selected as parents of the
next generation. In the latter, only l offspring compete for
survival and the m parents are completely replaced in each
generation. Then, the life of an individual is limited to a
single generation. Notice that this mechanism allows that
the best member at generation k 1 1 might perform worse
than the best individual at generation k. In other words, the
method is not elitist, thus facilitating the strategy to accept
temporary deterioration that might help to leave the region
of attraction of a local minimum and reach a better optimum
[8].
The process of ES is described in Ref. [8]. The following
pseudocode algorithm summarizes the components of the
…m 1 l†-ES evolutionary algorithm, where each individual
is characterized by a pair a ˆ …x; s i † :
tU0
1. Initialize P(t) U {a1(0),¼,am(0)} [ I m where I ˆ Rn1n
and ak ˆ …xi ; s i † ;i [ {1; ¼; n}
2. Evaluate P(t): {F(a1(t)),¼,F(am(t))} where F…a k …t†† ˆ
f …xk …t††;
while termination criterion not ful®lled do
3. Recombine: a 0 k(t) U r(P(t)) ;k [ {1,¼,l};
4. Mutate: a 00 k(t) U m{a 0 k(t) ;k [ {1,¼,l};
5. Evaluate P 0 (t) U {a 00 1(t),¼,a 00 l(t)}; {F(a 00 1(t)),¼,F(a 00 l(t))}
6. Select: P(t 1 1) U Sd(P 0 (t) < Q); t U t 1 1
end do
where Q [ {B; P…t†} depends on selection: Q ˆ B for …m; l†
selection and Q ˆ P…t† for …m 1 l† selection.
The operators r(´), m(´) and Sd(´) de®ne the application of
recombination, mutation and deterministic selection to the
respective arguments. Search points in ES are n-dimen-
sional vectors x [ R n ; and the ®tness value of an individual
is identical to its objective function value, i.e. F…a† ˆ f …x†
where x is the object variable component of a and each
individual include up to n different variances s i …i [
{1; ¼; n}†:
279
3.1. Recombination
In ES, new individuals are generated using the mutation
and recombination operators. In contrast with genetic
algorithms, the recombination operator creates only one
offspring. Different recombination mechanisms are used to
produce one new individual from a set of randomly selected
parent individuals. Basically, recombination works choos-
ing @ …1 # @ # m† parent vectors from P…t† [ I m with
uniform probability. Next, characteristics of @ parents are
mixed to create a new individual. When @ ˆ 2; recombina-
tion is called bisexual, and if @ . 2; it is called multisexual.
In particular, if @ ˆ m; recombination is called global [8].
On this class, there are two variants:
² Global discrete recombination. This variant is similar to
uniform crossover in genetic algorithms. Each compo-
nent of an offspring is created by selecting at random
an individual from parent population.
² Global intermediary recombination. Each component of
an offspring is generated by the arithmetic average of the
corresponding parent components, as follows:
X
@
b 0i ˆ …1=@† bk;i
kˆ1
where b 0i is the i-component of the offspring b 0 .
Notice that recombination is performed on strategy
parameters as well as on the object variables, and the recom-
bination operator may be different for object variables and
standard deviations.
3.2. Mutation
The mutation operator m: I ! I …where I ˆ Rn1n † yields
a mutated individual m…~a† ˆ …~x 0 ; s~ 0 †; by ®rst mutating the
standard deviations and then mutating the object variables
as follows:
s 0i j ˆ s ij exp…t 0 N…0; 1† 1 tNj …0; 1†† …5†
x 0i j ˆ xji 1 s 0i jN…0; 1† …6†
where i ˆ 1; ¼; l and j ˆ 1; ¼; n: N…0; 1† represents a
Gaussian number with zero mean and variance 1, that
should be the same for all vector positions. Nj …0; 1† also
represents a Gaussian number; nevertheless, this value
must be different for each j value.
The global factor t 0 N…0; 1† allows for any overall change
of the mutability, whereas tNi …0; 1† allows for individual
changes of s i : The factors t and t 0 are de®ned p as
`learning
rates' p
and are
 21 suggested by Back [21] as t ˆ … 4
4n †21 and
0
t ˆ … 2n† ; respectively, where n represents the problem
size.
280 J.R. Gomes, O.R. Saavedra / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 277±283
Fig. 1. Cauchy and Gaussian distributions …t ˆ 1†:
3.3. Selection
In contrast with EP [4], selection in classical ES (Sd) is
completely deterministic. 2 In case of …m 1 l†-ES, the m best
individuals are selected from the union of parents and
offspring. Thus, this selection is elitist and therefore
guarantees a monotonic improving performance. In …m; l†
strategies, the m best individuals are selected only from
offspring population and replace the parents in the next
generation (not elitist selection).
4. Fast evolution strategies
The Cauchy is a symmetrical long-tailed distribution. It is
plotted in Fig. 1 with a normal distribution. Its characteris-
tics are particularly interesting for engineering applications,
where practical applications must supply solutions at
permissible times. Due to Cauchy distribution be more
expanded than Gaussian distribution, it allows, probabilis-
tically speaking, larger mutations and in this way, generat-
ing more different individuals. This means that a major
solution space is covered, increasing the probability of
escaping from a local optimum. Some authors have
suggested the addition of CM rather than GM [20,23,24].
In Ref. [23] a ES with Cauchy-based mutation, called
Fast Evolution Strategy has been proposed, where mutation
is the primary search operator (recombination is not consid-
ered). This proposal follows the same general algorithm in
Section 3, except that Eq. (6) is replaced by
x 0i j ˆ xji 1 s ij dj …
where d j is a random number with Cauchy distribution with
scalar parameter setting as t ˆ 1: This number must be
obtained for each value of j.
2
In Ref. [25], Schwefel and Rudolph have been included tournament
selection as alternative to deterministic selection.
5. Extended Cauchy-based …m 1 l†-ES
The extended Cauchy-based Evolution Strategy (ECES) Ð
proposed in this article meets the following characteristics:
(a) The use of CM rather than GM; Eq. (7) substitutes Eq.
(6).
(b) Functional limits for s mutations.
(c) Selection …m 1 l†:
(d) Global intermediate recombination.
In (d), two alternatives have been considered:
GR1: A unique random number is generated to choose a pair
of components xi, s i in the parent population to create each
offspring component.
GR2: Independent random numbers are generated to choose
the parent components xi and s i; thus, for n-dimensional
vectors, 2n random numbers are required.
5.1. Offspring creation
The creation of an offspring is performed taking into
account the feasible range of the variable, similar to Lai
and Ma proposal [13,15] and using CM, as follows:
x 0i ˆ xi 1 s 0i …xmax
i 2 xmin
i †d …8†
This equation substitutes Eq. (6) in the mutation operation.
xmax
i 2 xmin
i are the limits of control variable xi. If xi exceeds its
limit, xi will be given the limit value. Moreover, offsprings
may be satisfy Eqs. (2) and (3). Cases where load ¯ow diverge
are discarded and new offsprings are generated.
5.2. Dynamic limits
This modi®cation is addressed to limit s mutations by
introducing dynamic upper and lower bounds, as suggested
in Ref. [22]. Dynamic limits allow s mutations fall into an
upper and lower limit, both dynamically decreasing
exponentially, as follows:
0
s…t† max ˆ s max exp…2t=T1 † …9†
0
s…t† min ˆ s min exp…2t=T2 † …10†
0 0
where s max and s min are initial values for each function and
7† t denotes the generation; T1 and T2 are time constants calcu-
f f
lated from ®nal values desired for s max and s min ; respec-
tively. If any dynamic limit is violated, then s (t) will be
given the average of current values of functions above.
Eqs. (9) and (10) allow `large' mutations in the initial
generations and `small' mutations at the end. In other
words, in the ®rst iterations diversity is emphasized while
the last generations are dominated by a re®ned search
process (small mutations).
 J.R. Gomes, O.R. Saavedra / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 277±283 281
0
Table 1 2. for ECES, s max ˆ 1022 ; 0
s min ˆ 1024 ; f
s max ˆ
Reactive power generation limits of IEEE118 bus system 23 f 25
10 and s min ˆ 10 :
Reactive power generation limits Ð IEEE118
Tests have been performed over 500 generations, using
Bus 1 4 6 8 10 12 15
m ˆ 20 and l ˆ 100: The stopping criteria has been the
Qmin
g 0 2100 25 2100 2100 230 25
Qmax 8 300 30 300 300 75 23 maximum number of generations.
g
Bus 18 19 24 25 26 27 31
Qmin
g 25 25 2100 2100 2300 2100 2100
Qmax
g 23 15 300 300 600 300 300 6. Test results
Bus 32 34 36 40 42 46 49
Qmin
g 25 25 25 2100 2100 2100 2100
Qmax
g 23 23 15 300 300 300 300 Tests have been performed using the IEEE118 standard
Bus 54 55 56 59 61 62 65 system. The network consists of 54 generator-buses, 64
Qmin
g 2100 25 25 2100 2100 0 2100 load-buses and 179 branches, of which nine branches are
Qmax
g 300 11 11 300 300 8 300 under load-tap-setting transformer branches. Thus, the
Bus 66 69 70 72 73 74 76
dimension of the control vector is 63. All power and voltage
Qmin
g 2100 2300 0 2100 2100 0 0
Qmax
g 300 600 8 300 300 4 8 quantities are per-unit values.
Bus 77 80 85 87 89 90 91 Table 1 shows MVAr limits in PV buses. Voltage limits
Qmin
g 210 2100 0 2100 2100 2100 2100 have been considered 0.9±1.10 pu for PV-buses and 0.95±
Qmax
g 38 300 8 300 300 300 300 1.05 for PQ-buses. Taps limits have been assumed 0.90±
Bus 92 99 100 103 104 105 107
1.10. Threshold values of 0.10% and 10 23% are considered
Qmin
g 0 2100 2100 25 25 25 2100
Qmax
g 8 300 300 15 15 15 300 to accept or discard reactive and voltage violations, respec-
Bus 110 111 112 113 116 ± ± tively. The reactive power limits of slack bus have been
Qmin
g 0 2100 2100 2100 2250 ± ± assumed equal to the great and to the least capacity values
Qmax
g 1 300 300 300 525 ± ± observed in the generation buses.
The base-case has violations in voltage and reactive
generation. It was observed that 39 PQ buses have voltage
5.3. Implementation violations. Values fall in the range of 0.8983 pu (bus 5) to
1.1003 pu (bus 118). Reactive violations have been
To validate this proposal, several variants have been
observed in 13 PV buses and the worst violation has been
implemented and are described next. In all the variants, s
in bus 92 (18.90 MVAr, lower limit). The active losses of
mutations are controlled by Eqs. (9) and (10):
base-case has been 1.5237 pu.
Due to probabilistic characteristic of evolutionary
1. SES Ð Simple …m 1 l† Evolution Strategy: It uses the
algorithms, results reported here correspond to average
classical GM without recombination.
from 20 trials. From practical point of view, we are inter-
2. EES1 Ð Extended …m 1 l† Evolution Strategy with
ested in reliable software tools that supply good solutions
global intermediate recombination and strategy GR1.
every time. Thus, to evaluate the quality of the proposals,
3. EES2 Ð Similar to above variant, but using strategy GR2.
dispersion measures have been used.
4. EES3 Ð Similar to EES2, but using …m; l† selection.
Fig. 2 shows the performance of SES, EES1 and EES2
5. ECES Ð Extended Cauchy-based …m 1 l† Evolution
algorithms. The best results was obtained from EES2
Strategy: Similar to EES2, but it uses CM rather than GM.
version.
Fig. 3 presents the performance of EES2, EES3 and ECES
5.4. Parameters used

The ®tness function F (s) corresponds to penalized objec-

tive function f, given by Eq. (1). Control vector x is formed
by generator bus voltages and transformer tap-settings. The
objective function penalty factors utilized have been r qi ˆ
106 ervi ˆ 108 :
The initial population formed by m individuals was
generated at random, however satisfying Eqs. (2) and (3).
The parameters used in dynamic limits of Eqs. (9) and
(10) were the following:

0 0
1. for variants (1)±(4), s max ˆ 1; s min ˆ 1023 ; s max
f
ˆ
22 f 24
10 es min ˆ 10 ; Fig. 2. Objective function average for SES, EES1 and EES2 methods.
282 J.R. Gomes, O.R. Saavedra / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 277±283

Table 2
Statistical performance of approaches implemented in 20 trials

Performance in terms of objective function

Method f`min f`max f` s` NVS%

SES 1.4164 824.1360 42.6039 179.2957 95

EES1 1.3874 38.9229 3.3118 8.1698 95
EES2 1.3800 1.4679 1.4321 .0254 100
EES3 1.3966 1.5281 1.4661 .0322 100
ECES 1.3485 1.4199 1.3818 .0184 100

Table 2 shows the bene®cial effect of the use of global

Fig. 3. Objective function average for EES2, EES3 and ECES methods.
algorithms (in order to make easy the comparison, EES2 has
been repeated). Basic difference between EES2 and EES3 is
the selection type. In the application of this paper, …m 1 l†
performs better than …m; l† selection. On the other hand, when
both …m 1 l† selection and CM are considered (ECES
algorithm), the global performance is clearly improved.
Fig. 4 shows, in more detail, the last generations for the
same variants plotted in Fig. 3.
In Tables 2 and 3 are presented the comparative perfor-
mance for the ®ve variants implemented in terms of objec-
tive function and losses minimization, respectively. Table 2
focuses the ability of variants to ®nd feasible solutions,
while Table 3 emphasizes loss minimization into the
feasible solution set. Tests have been performed for 500
generations. Each value corresponds to the average (over
20 trials) of the best ®tness on the current generation.
Columns 2±5 in Table 2 give the minimum, maximum,
average and standard deviation of objective function,
respectively; column 6 gives the number of feasible
solutions (NVS). Similarly, columns 2±5 in Table 3 give
the minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation of
losses, respectively; column 6 gives the average losses
relative to base-case losses.
intermediate recombination. In general, it has been observed
that the strategy GR2 be bene®cial in terms of feasibility. It
is presented on EES2, EES3 and ECES variants; notice in all
these cases, no violations have been observed over the 20
simulations (NVS equal to 100%).
In terms of losses minimization, …m 1 l† selection (EES2
algorithm) performs better than …m; l† selection. Similarly to
the analysis above, algorithm ECES presents the best
performance.
Up till now, results of algorithms in terms of optimality
and feasibility has been analyzed. However, the inclusion of
sophisticated recombination strategies, new mutation type
and other improvements have a computational cost. Table 4
shows the CPU time of the implemented algorithms, where
teval and top give the percent time per generation consumed in
objective function evaluations and evolutionary operations,
respectively. tger gives de average CPU time of one genera-
tion, in seconds. The last column gives the average CPU
time in minutes at the 500th generation. ECES algorithm
presents the best solution, but with the highest CPU time
(i.e. quality have a price). However, notice that ECES
provides solutions better than EES2 ±EES3 algorithms
already at the 350th generation and more quickly (see
Fig. 4).
7. Conclusions
In this work is presented a new proposal for solving the
reactive power dispatch. The approach is based on the
…m 1 l†-ES paradigm improved by the control of mutations
and by using Cauchy-based mutation rather than the classi-
cal GMs. Due to the probabilistic nature of algorithms, a

Table 3
Statistical performance in terms of losses for cases without violation

Performance in terms of losses

Method f`min f`max f` s` f`r %

SES 1.4164 1.5661 1.4706 2.4391 96.52

EES1 1.3874 1.4681 1.4375 1.3660 94.35
EES2 1.3800 1.4679 1.4321 1.7759 93.99
EES3 1.3966 1.5281 1.4661 2.1931 96.22
ECES 1.3485 1.4199 1.3818 1.3347 90.69
Fig. 4. Zoom of last generations for EES2, EES3 and ECES methods.
 J.R. Gomes, O.R. Saavedra / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 24 (2002) 277±283
Table 4
Statistical performance in terms of CPU time
Method CPU-time average by generation
teval (%) top (%) tger (s)
SES 88.03 11.97 1.4755
EES1 83.31 16.69 1.5493
EES2 77.46 22.54 1.6350
EES3 78.55 21.45 1.7362
ECES 77.60 22.40 1.7323
statistical analysis has been presented. The comparative
study has shown that the ECES algorithm performs better
than the other approaches. In 100% of the tests, feasible
solutions with losses reduction have been achieved. Bene-
®cial effect of CMs in terms of speed and quality solutions
has been observed. Exhaustive tests were performed and
reported using the standard IEEE118 system in this work.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the support from
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientõ®co Tecno-
loÂgico Ð CNPq and SuperintendeÃncia de Desenvolvimento
da AmazoÃnia Ð SUDAM, Brazil.
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