Applied Soft Computing 12 (2012) 2756–2764

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Applied Soft Computing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/asoc

Multi-objective GA with fuzzy decision making for security enhancement

in power system
R. Narmatha Banu ∗ , D. Devaraj
Department of Electrical Engineering, Kalasalingam University, Krishnankoil, Tamil Nadu, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Power system security enhancement is a major concern in the operation of power system. In this paper,
Received 18 January 2011 the task of security enhancement is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem with mini-
Received in revised form 10 August 2011 mization of fuel cost and minimization of FACTS device investment cost as objectives. Generator active
Accepted 7 March 2012
power, generator bus voltage magnitude and the reactance of Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitors
Available online 30 April 2012
(TCSC) are taken as the decision variables. The probable locations of TCSC are pre-selected based on the
values of Line Overload Sensitivity Index (LOSI) calculated for each branch in the system. Multi-objective
Keywords:
genetic algorithm (MOGA) is applied to solve this security optimization problem. In the proposed GA, the
Power system security
Flexible AC transmission system (FACTS)
decision variables are represented as floating point numbers in the GA population. The MOGA empha-
devices size non-dominated solutions and simultaneously maintains diversity in the non-dominated solutions. A
Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitors fuzzy set theory-based approach is employed to obtain the best compromise solution over the trade-off
(TCSC) curve. The proposed approach has been evaluated on the IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 118-bus test systems. Sim-
Genetic algorithm ulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach for solving the multi-objective security
Pareto optimal frontier enhancement problem.
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Apart from generation re-scheduling, FACTS devices [3,4] based

In any power system, unexpected outage of transmission lines
occurs due to faults or other disturbances. These events referred to
as contingencies, may cause significant overloading of transmission
lines, which in turn may lead to total or partial system blackout.
Security constrained optimal power flow (SCOPF) is the main tool
used in the energy control centers to avoid limit violation in the
contingency state. SCOPF [1] adjusts base case decision variables to
minimize the defined objective function subject to base case and
contingency state operating constraints. The solution of an SCOPF
is useful for both system operation and planning.
The SCOPF does not take advantage of the post-contingency cor-
rective rescheduling that is possible in static security enhancement.
In [2], a mathematical framework was proposed for the solution
of the SCOPF problem taking into account the system corrective
capabilities such as generation rescheduling after the outage has
occurred. The resulting dispatch has the same security level as the
SCOPF, but with lower operating costs. An iterative approach is
proposed in [6] to solve the SCOPF with corrective action.
∗ Corresponding author at: Kalasalingam University, Department of Electrical
Engineering, Anandnagar, Krishnankoil 626126, Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu, India.
Tel.: +91 4563 289042; fax: +91 4563 289322.
E-mail addresses: narmi800@yahoo.co.in (R.N. Banu), deva230@yahoo.com
(D. Devaraj).
on power electronics technology can also be used for power flow
control through transmission lines. Thyristor Controlled Series
Capacitors (TCSC), one of the FACTS devices can be used effectively
in alleviating the line overload in case of a contingency. In this work,
the base case generator active power, generator bus voltages and
contingency state TCSC reactance values are used as the decision
variables for security enhancement. For a large-scale power system,
more than one FACTS device may have to be installed to achieve
the desired performance. Studies have been conducted to identify
the suitable location for FACTS devices to improve power system
security. In this work, the location of TCSC is identified based on
line overload severity index computed for every line in the system.
While using FACTS devices for the performance improvement of
power system, the installation cost need to be taken into account
which is not done in the above papers. In this work, the installation
cost of TCSC is taken as the additional objective of the OPF problem.
In the literature, the SCOPF with corrective action is treated as
a single-objective optimization problem [5,6]. In this paper, the
SCOPF with corrective action is treated as a true multi-objective
optimization problem with minimization of fuel cost and the instal-
lation cost of TCSC as the objectives. Because of the presence
of conflicting multiple objectives, a multi-objective optimization
problem results in a number of optimal solutions, known as pareto
optimal solutions [7,8]. In a multi-objective optimization, effort
must be made in finding the set of trade-off optimal solutions by
considering all objectives to be important.

1568-4946/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2012.03.057
 R.N. Banu, D. Devaraj / Applied Soft Computing 12 (2012) 2756–2764
Nomenclature
Gij , Bij mutual conductance and susceptance between bus
i and bus j
Gii , Bii self-conductance and susceptance of bus i
Gk conductance of branch k
FT total fuel cost
NB total number of buses
NB−1 total number of buses excluding slack bus
NPQ number of PQ buses
Ng number of generator buses
Nl number of branches in the system
Pi , Qi real and reactive powers injected into network at
bus i
Pgi , Qgi real and reactive power generation at bus i
Sl apparent power flow through the lth branch
Slmax apparent power flow limit through the lth branch
Vi voltage magnitude at bus i
Vj voltage magnitude at bus j
 ij voltage angle difference between bus i and bus j
One, straightforward approach to solve the multi-objective opti-
mization problem is to convert them into a single objective problem
by linear combination of different objectives as a weighted sum
and then solve it similar to single objective optimization problems
[9]. The important aspect of this weighted sum method is that a
set of non-inferior (or pareto optimal) solutions can be obtained
by varying the weights. Unfortunately, this requires multiple run
as many times as the number of desired pareto optimal solutions.
Furthermore, this method cannot be used to find pareto optimal
solutions in problems having a non-convex pareto optimal front.
To avoid this difficulty, the Є-constraint method [10] is used for
multi-objective optimization problem. This method is based on
optimizing the most preferred objective and considering the other
objectives as constraints bounded by some allowable levels. These
levels are then altered to generate the entire pareto optimal set. This
approach is time-consuming and tends to find weak pareto optimal
solutions. The ability of Evolutionary Computation techniques like
Genetic Algorithm to find multiple optimal solutions in one sin-
gle simulation run makes them unique in solving multi-objective
optimization problems [7]. In this work, the multi-objective secu-
rity optimization problem is solved using multi-objective genetic
algorithm (MOGA) [11].
Like the other approaches such as NSGA II, SPEA2, IBEA and
DEMO, MOGA is also a population-based search algorithm. Each
algorithm differs in the way fitness value is assigned to the individ-
uals while solving the multi-objective optimization problem. The
environmental selection in NSGA-II [12] first ranks the individuals
using non-dominated sorting. To distinguish between individu-
als with the same rank, the crowding distance metric is used,
which prefers individuals from less crowded regions of the objec-
tive space. SPEA2 [13] works similarly, calculating the raw fitness of
the individuals according to Pareto dominance relations between
them and using a density measure to break the ties. The individu-
als that reside close together in the objective space are discouraged
from entering the archive of best solutions. IBEA [14], on the other
hand, uses a different approach. The fitness of individuals is deter-
mined only according to the value of a predefined indicator. This
indicator has to be dominance preserving and no other explicit
diversity preserving mechanism (such as crowding in NSGA-II or
density in SPEA2) is applied. In DEMO (Differential Evolution for
Multi-objective Optimization) [15], the fitness of an individual is
first calculated using Pareto-based ranking and then reduced with
respect to the individual’s crowding distance value. This single
2757
i -jxc rij+jxij j
Fig. 1. Equivalent circuit of TCSC.
fitness value is then used to select the best individuals for the new
population.
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 [17] 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 2k (where k is an integer) it becomes difficult to use a
fixed length binary coding to represent all permissible values. To
overcome these difficulties, in this paper, the optimization vari-
ables namely, generator active power generation Pgi , generator bus
voltages Vgi and TCSC settings are represented as floating point
numbers in the genetic population. For effective genetic operation,
crossover and mutation operators which can directly operate on
floating point numbers [24] are used. The effectiveness and poten-
tial of the proposed approach to solve the multi-objective optimal
power flow (OPF) problem has been demonstrated using IEEE 30-
bus and IEEE 118-bus systems. Lesser computational time taken
by the MOGA to reach the optimal solutions makes it suitable for
solving the large scale optimization problem like SCOPF.
2. Modelling and placement of Thyristor Controlled Series
Capacitors (TCSC)
Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitors (TCSC) consist of a fixed
capacitor in parallel with a thyristor controlled reactor. The primary
function of the TCSC is to provide variable series compensation to
a transmission line. This changes the line flow due to change in
series reactance. Fig. 1 shows a model of transmission line with
TCSC connected between buses ‘i’ and ‘j’.
For steady state analysis, the TCSC can be considered as a static
reactance −jxc . The controllable reactance xc is directly used as
the control variable in the power flow equations. The power flow
equations of a transmission line with TCSC can be written as:
Pij = Vi2 gij − Vi Vj (gij cos ıij + bij sin ıij )
(1)
Qij = −Vi2 bij − Vi Vj (gij sin ıij − bij cos ıij )
where
rij
gij =
rij2 + (xij − xc )2
xc (2)
bij = xij −
rij2 + (xij − xc )2
The only difference between normal line power flow equation
and the TCSC line power flow equation is the presence of the con-
trollable reactance xc which is varied by adjusting the value of TCSC
reactance.
To enhance the security of the system, the TCSC has to be placed
at the suitable locations. To determine the best location of TCSC,
an index called Line Overload Sensitivity Index (LOSI) is calculated
for all the remaining lines. The LOSIl for branch “l” is defined as the
sum of the normalized power flow through branch “l” to all the
considered contingencies ‘C’, expressed as:
NC  
 SlC
LOSIl = (3)
Slmax
C=1
2758 R.N. Banu, D. Devaraj / Applied Soft Computing 12 (2012) 2756–2764

where SlC = MVA flow in line ‘l’ during contingency 3.1.3. Problem constraints
“C”. The constraints are:
The LOSI defined at branch “l” for the base case loading is defined
by LOSIlBL . In order to achieve optimal location of TCSC, valid under • load flow constraints
change in system loading, LOSI indices defined in (4) are also com-

NB
puted at an increased loading and decreased loading scenario. The Qi − Vi Vj (Gij sin ij − Bij cos ij ) = 0, i = 1, 2, . . . , NPQ
increased loading scenario pertains to all the loads increased by 5%
j=1
from their base values and the decreased loading scenario has been
(7)
simulated with the loads decreased by 5% from their base values.
The corresponding LOSI, calculated at each overloaded lines, are
termed as LOSIlIL and LOSIlDL respectively. The optimal location of
TCSC has been decided by an average line overload severity index,

NB

Pi − Vi Vj (Gij cos ij + Bij sin ij ) = 0, i = 1, 2, . . . , NB−1 (8)

computed for every line, as defined in the following:
  j=1
LOSIlBL + LOSIlIL + LOSIlDL • voltage constraint
LOSIl = (4)
3
Vimin ≤ Vi ≤ Vimax , i ∈ NB (9)
The branches are ranked based on their corresponding LOSIl val-
• real power generation limit
ues. The TCSC are placed on the branches starting from the top of
the ranking list and proceeding downward with as many branches Pgmin ≤ Pg ≤ Pgmax , g ∈ Ng (10)
as the number of available TCSC.
• generator reactive power generation limit
3. Problem formulation Qgmin ≤ Qg ≤ Qgmax , g ∈ Ng (11)

In general, the optimal power flow (OPF) problem is formu-
lated as an optimization problem in which one or more objective
functions are minimized while satisfying a number of equality
and inequality constraints. In the security enhancement problem
considered here the goal is to determine the optimal values of gen-
erator active power, generator bus voltage magnitudes and TCSC
that enhance the systems security level while minimizing the gen-
erator fuel cost and investment cost of TCSC. Minimization of fuel
cost will necessitate higher values of TCSC to reach the same level
of security. This will be lead to increased value of TCSC installation
cost. The mathematical formulation of the security enhancement
problem is given below.
3.1. Objective functions
3.1.1. Economic objective function (FC )
The most commonly used objective in the OPF problem formu-
lation is the minimization of the total operation cost of the fuel
consumed for producing electric power within a scheduled time
interval. The individual costs of each generating unit are assumed
to be function only of real power generation and are represented
by quadratic curves. The objective function for the entire power
system can be expressed as the sum of the quadratic cost model at
each generator [18].

Ng
2
FC = (ai Pgi + bi Pgi + ci ) ($/h)
i=1
where ai , bi , and ci are the cost coefficients of generator at bus i. Pgi
is the active power generation at bus i.
3.1.2. TCSC cost function (FE )
It is important to take the economical aspects of the TCSC devices
installed in the power system due to high investment and operating
costs. The total investment cost of the TCSC device is expressed as
[21]:

FIC = (fi + vi Xi )
i∈˝
where fi and vi are the fixed cost and variable cost for candidate.
˝ is a set of all candidate sites, and Xi , is the rating of TCSC device i.
• transmission line flow limit
Sl < Slmax , l ∈ Nl (12)
• limit on reactance of TCSC
min max
XTCSC,i ≤ XTCSC,i ≤ XTCSC,i , i ∈ NTCSC (13)
The security constrained optimal power flow (SCOPF) formula-
tion considers both the pre and post contingency state power flows
and all constraints in those states should always be satisfied. The
post-contingency constraints are of the same dimension as those
of the pre-contingency case. If there are m total constraints in a
given base case optimal power flow (OPF), there will be (k + 1)m
constraints in a SCOPF formulation with k contingencies.
Aggregating the objectives and constraints, the problem can
be mathematically formulated as a non-linear constrained multi-
objective optimization problem as follows:
minimize FT = [FC , FIC ] (14)
subject to the constraints (7)–(13).
4. Multi-objective genetic algorithm
Genetic algorithms (GA) [22] are generalized search algorithms
based on the mechanics of natural genetics. GA maintains a popu-
lation of individuals that represent the candidate solutions to the
(5) given problem. Each individual in the population is evaluated to
give some measure of its fitness to the problem from the objective
function. GAs combine solution evaluation with stochastic genetic
operators namely, selection, crossover and mutation to obtain near
optimality. Being a population-based approach, GA is well suited
to solve multi-objective optimization problems. Multi-objective
genetic algorithm [7,23] is an extension of classical GA. The main
difference between a conventional GA and a MOGA lies in the
assignment of fitness to an individual. The rest of the algorithm
is the same as that in a classical GA. The details of the MOGA are
described below.
(6) In the MOGA, first, each solution is checked for its domination
in the population. Two solutions (x(1) and x(2) ) are compared on the
basis of whether one dominates the other solution or not. A solu-
tion x(1) is said to dominate the other solution x(2) , if the following
conditions are satisfied:
 R.N. Banu, D. Devaraj / Applied Soft Computing 12 (2012) 2756–2764
(a) The solution x(1) is no worse than x(2) in all objectives, or
fi (x(1) )f
¯ i (x(2) ) for all i = 1, 2, . . ., M where M be the objective
functions.
(b) The solutions x(1) is strictly better than x(2) in at least one objec-
tive, or fi (x(1) )  fi (x(2) ) for at least one j (j ∈ {1, 2, . . ., M})
If any of the above condition is violated, the solution x(1) does
not dominate the solution x(2) (or mathematically x(1) ≤ x(2) ).
To a solution ‘i’, a rank ri equal to one plus the number of solu-
tions i that dominate solution ‘i’ is assigned:
ri = 1 + i
In this way, non-dominated solutions are assigned a rank equal
to 1, since no solution would dominate a non-dominated solution
in a population. Once the ranking is done, a raw fitness is assigned
to each solution 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 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 fitness
are averaged. This average fitness is called the assigned fitness to
each solution of the rank. This process 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 niche count is calculated with the following
equation:

(ri )
nci = Sh(dij )
j=1
where (ri ) is the number of solutions in rank ri and Sh(dij ) is the
sharing function of two solutions i and j.
The sharing function Sh(d) is calculated using objective function
value as distance metric as
⎧  ˛
⎨ dij
1− , if d ≤ share
Sh(dij ) = share
⎩ i
0, otherwise
where ‘ share ’ is the sharing parameter which signifies the max-
imum distance between any two solutions before they can be
considered to be in the same niche and dij is the normalized dis-
tance between any two solutions i and j in a rank. The normalized
distance dij is calculated using
2759
where fjSC is the scaled fitness; fj is the shared fitness and it is cal-
culated using fj = fj /ncj ; (r) is the number of solutions in rank
ri .
This procedure is continued until all ranks are processed. There-
after, selection, crossover and mutation operators are applied to
create a new population. With each individual represented as a
string of integers and floating point numbers, selection process
remains the same as in classical GA, but the cross over and mutation
operators are applied variable by variable. In this paper, tourna-
ment selection and BLX-␣ crossover and non-uniform mutation
(15) operators [7] are used.
5. Best compromise solution
Upon having the pareto optimal set of non-dominated solution,
it is preferred to get the best compromise solution for implemen-
tation. The Many-objective Distinct Candidates Optimization using
Differential Evolution (MODCODE) algorithm [16] discovered a low
number of solutions within a region of interest on the true pareto
front. It aims at returning a few optimal distinct solutions within a
region of interest, with both result set cardinality and distinctive-
ness being user defined in compliance with the goals of MODCO
algorithm.
Considering the imprecise nature of decision maker’s judgment
this work applies a fuzzy set-based approach to obtain the best
compromise solution [19]. Fuzzy set theory generalizes classical set
theory to allow partial membership with a smooth boundary. The
degree of membership in a set is expressed by a number between
(16) 0 and 1.0 means entirely not in the set, 1 means completely in the
set, and a number in between 0 and 1 means partially in the set.
In this paper, it is assumed that the decision maker (DM) has fuzzy
goal for each objective. These fuzzy goals depend on experience and
intuitive knowledge of the DM. The fuzzy goals are represented by
linear membership function as given by Eq. (20). The ith objective
function Fi is represented by a membership function i defined by
⎧
Fi ≤ Fimin
(17) ⎪ 1,
⎨ F max − F
i
i (Fi ) = , Fimin < Fi < Fimax (20)
⎪ max min
⎩ Fi − Fi
0, Fi ≥ Fimax
where Fimin and Fimax are the minimum and maximum value of
the ith objective function respectively among all non-dominated
solutions.
  2 The value of membership function suggests how far (in the scale
M
 fki − fk
j from 0 to 1) a non-inferior (non-dominated) solution has satis-
dij =
(18) fied the Fi objective. The sum of membership function values (Fi )
fkmax − fkmin
k=1 (i = 1, 2, 3, . . ., M) for all the objectives can be computed in order
to measure the accomplishment of each solution in satisfying the
where fkmax and fkmin are the maximum and minimum objective
objectives. The accomplishment of each non-dominated solutions
function value of the kth objective. The shared function takes a
can be rated with respect to all the N non-dominated solutions by
value in [0, 1], depending on the values of dij and  share .
normalizing its accomplishment over the sum of the accomplish-
The shared fitness value is calculated by dividing the assigned
ments of N non-dominated solutions as follows:
fitness of a solution by its niche count. Although all solutions of any
particular rank have the identical fitness, the shared fitness value

M
k i=1
(Fik )
of a solution residing in a less crowded region has a better shared  =
N
M (21)
fitness. This produces a large selection pressure for poorly repre- k=1 i=1
(Fik )
sented solutions in any rank. Dividing the assigned fitness value by
The solution that attains the maximum membership k , in the
the niche count reduces the fitness of each solution. In order to keep
fuzzy set so obtained can be chosen as the best solution or the one
the average fitness of the solutions in a rank the same as that before
having the highest cardinal priority ranking.
sharing, these fitness values are scaled using Eq. (19) so that their
average shared fitness value is the same as the average assigned
fitness value. 6. Genetic algorithm implementation
fj (r)
fjSC =
(r) (19) While applying GA for solving the SCOPF problem, the following
f
k=1 k issues need to be addressed:
2760 R.N. Banu, D. Devaraj / Applied Soft Computing 12 (2012) 2756–2764

Table 1
Line outage ranking using severity index.

Outage line no. Over loaded lines Line flow (MVA) Line flow limit (MVA) Severity index (SI) Rank

1–3 191.58 130

1–2 3–4 174.13 130 5.262 1
4–6 103.37 90

1–2 181.17 130

1–3 3.010 2
2–6 66.482 65

1–2 178.43 130

3–4 2.9011 3
2–6 65.558 65

22–24 19.062 16
28–27 2.1979 4
24–25 17.781 16

2–6 76.285 65
2–5 1.3777 5
5–7 101.08 70

⎧
• solution representation and ⎨ KV (ViK − Vimax )2 , if Vik > Vimax
• fitness evaluation.
PViK = K min k 2min (24)
⎩ KV (Vi − Vi ) , if Vi < Vi
0, otherwise
6.1. Solution representation ⎧
⎨ Kq (QiK − Qimax )2 , if Qik > Qimax
Implementation of GA for a problem starts with the parameter PQiK = K min k 2min (25)
encoding (i.e., the representation of the problem). Each individ- ⎩ Kq (Qi − Qi ) , if Qi < Qi
0, otherwise
ual in the genetic population represents a candidate solution. The

elements of that solution consist of all the decision variables in 2
Kl (SlK − Slmax ) , if Slk > Slmax
the system. The decision variables of the SCOPF problem include PLlK = (26)
0, otherwise
active power generation Pgi , generator bus voltage magnitude Vgi
and transformer tap settings tk . The solution variables are repre- where Ks , Kv , Kq , and Kl are the penalty factors for slack bus power
sented as floating point numbers and integers. This representation output, bus voltage limit violation, generator reactive power limit
has a number of advantages over binary coding. The efficiency of violation and line flow violation respectively.
the GA is increased as there is no need to convert the solution vari- The penalty function is added to each of the objective function
ables to the binary type. Also, the computer memory required to to get the new objective functions.
store the population is reduced.
7. Simulation results
6.2. Evaluation function
The proposed multi-objective genetic algorithm approach has
GA searches for the optimal solution by maximizing a given fit- been applied to solve the security enhancement problem in IEEE-
ness function, and therefore an evaluation function which provides 30 bus and IEEE 118-bus test systems. The IEEE 30-bus system has 6
a measure of the quality of the problem solution must be provided. generator buses, 24 load buses and 41 transmission lines, of which
In the SCOPF problem under consideration, the objectives are to 4 branches (6–9), (6–10), (4–12) and (28–27) are with tap setting
minimize the fuel cost of generation and investment cost of TCSC transformers. The generator and transmission-line data relevant to
satisfying the constraints. The equality constraints given by Eqs. the system are taken from [1]. The upper and lower voltage limits at
(7) and (8) are satisfied by running the power flow program. The all the bus bars except slack bus are taken as 1.10 p.u. and 0.95 p.u.
active power generation (Pgi ) (except the generator at the slack respectively. The slack bus bar voltage is fixed to its specified value
bus), generator terminal bus voltages (Vgi ), transformer tap settings of 1.06 p.u. The generator cost coefficients and the transmission line
(tk ) and reactance of TCSC (XTCSC ) are the decision variables and parameters are taken from [1].
they are self-restricted by the optimization algorithm. The limit on The IEEE 118-bus test system has 54 generator buses and 186
active power generation at the slack bus (Pgs ), load bus voltages transmission lines. All other data are the same as the standard IEEE
(Vload ), reactive power generation (Qgi ) and line flow (Sl ) are satis- 118-bus data given in [20]. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the
fied by adding a penalty function with the objective function. With proposed approach, three different cases have been considered as
the inclusion of the penalty terms, the over all penalty function follows:
becomes:
Case 1: SCOPF with minimization of fuel cost as objective in

NC
 
NC NPQ
 
NC Ng
 
NC Nl
IEEE 30-bus system without considering post contingency
PF = PS K + PViK + PQiK + PLlK (22) rescheduling.
K=0 K=0 i=1 K=0 i=1 K=0 l=1 Case 2: Multi objective optimal power flow for security enhance-
ment in IEEE 30-bus system.
where PSK , PViK , PQiK and PLlK are the penalty terms for the slack
Case 3: Multi objective optimal power flow for security enhance-
bus generator active power limit violation, load bus voltage-limit
ment in IEEE 118-bus system.
violation, reactive power generation limit violation, and line flow
limit violation respectively. These quantities are defined by the
7.1. Case 1: SCOPF with minimization of fuel cost as objective in
equations:
IEEE 30-bus system
⎧
⎨ KS (PSK − PSmax )2 , if PSK > PSmax
In this case, contingency analysis was carried out on the system
PS K = K min K2 min (23)
⎩ KS (PS − PS ) , if PS < PS to identify the severe contingencies. The list of severe contingen-
0, otherwise cies along with their severity index value which were from Eq.
 R.N. Banu, D. Devaraj / Applied Soft Computing 12 (2012) 2756–2764 2761

Table 4
Extreme solutions for the three severe contingencies.

Control variables Minimum fuel Minimum

cost solution installation
cost solution

P1 124.92 129.74
P2 58.64 44.121
P5 25.32 40.507
P8 34.89 27.471
P11 22.934 25.984
P13 20.67 17.508
V1 1.0489 1.0476
V2 1.0345 1.0322
V5 1.0096 1.002
V8 1.0147 1.0023
V11 1.0986 1.0597
V13 1.0580 1.0566
TCSC (line outage 1–2) −0.5000, −0.5000,
−0.0734 −0.4958
TCSC (line outage 1–3) −0.5000, −0.3468,
−0.2441 −0.4709
TCSC3 (line outage 3–4) −0.4173, −0.2895,
−0.4336 −0.2612
Fuel cost ($/h) 814.7269 827.5058
Fig. 2. Convergence of the GA-SCOPF algorithm for IEEE 30-bus test system. Installation cost ($) 3.56 × 104 0.47 × 104

Table 5
(A.1) is given in Table 1. From the contingency analysis, it is found Best compromise solution for the IEEE 30-bus system.
that five contingencies have resulted in overload on other lines.
The line flows corresponding to the severe contingencies were Control variables Optimal Control variable settings

included as additional constraints of the OPF problem and the P1 , P2 , P5 , P8 , P11 , P13 (base) 125.265,58.645, 25.317, 34.89, 22.93,
proposed GA was applied to solve this security constrained OPF 20.67
V1 , V2 , V5 , V8 , V11 , V13 0.9750, 1.0500, 1.1000, 0.9800, 0.9670,
problem with the minimization of base case fuel cost as the objec-
0.9520, 1.0140, 1.0750, 0.9840.
tive function. Generator active power outputs and the generator TCSC (line outage 1–2) −0.5000, −0.0404
bus terminal voltages were taken as the optimization variables. The TCSC (line outage 1–3) −0.4900, −0.321
optimization variables are represented as floating point numbers TCSC3 (line outage 3–4) −0.323, −0.4321
Fcost ($/h) 819.41
in the GA population. The initial population was randomly gener-
Installation cost ($) 1.52 × 104
ated between the variable’s lower and upper limits. Tournament
selection was applied to select the members of the new popula-
tion. Blend crossover and uniform mutation were applied on the No. of generations: 100, population size: 50, crossover probabil-
selected individuals. The performance of GA generally depends on ity: 0.9, mutation probability: 0.01.
the GA parameters used, in particular, the crossover and mutation After 100 generations it was found that all the individuals have
probabilities, Pc and Pm, respectively. The performance of GA for reached almost the same fitness value. This shows that GA has
various crossover and mutation probabilities in the range of 0.6–0.9 reached the optimal solution. Fig. 2 shows the variation of fitness
and 0.001–0.01 respectively was therefore evaluated. during the GA run for the best case. Ten trail runs of the GA was
The best result of the GA was obtained with the following algo- conducted for the SCOPF problem and the minimum, maximum
rithm parameters: and the average value of fuel cost are 824.8991 $/h, 824.991 $/h
and 824.9231 $/h respectively.

Table 2
Result of SCOPF Algorithm.

P1 142.38
P2 49.18
P5 29.51
P8 34.59
P11 16.70
P13 20.6
V1 1.0498
V2 1.0340
V5 1.0105
V8 1.0245
V11 0.9310
V13 1.0264

Generation cost 824.9868 ($/h)

Table 3
LOSI values for IEEE 30 bus test system.

S. no. Branches LOSI value

1 2–6 0.93942
2 2–4 0.3283
Fig. 3. Pareto-optimal front for the three severe contingencies.
2762 R.N. Banu, D. Devaraj / Applied Soft Computing 12 (2012) 2756–2764

Table 6
Line outage ranking using severity index for IEEE 118-bus system.

Outage line no. Over loaded lines Line flow (MVA) Line flow limit (MVA) Severity index (SI) Rank

30–17 506.554 500

8–5 5.4252 1
8–30 419.466 200

8–30 214.225 200

9–10 3.1158 2
30–38 198.765 175

8–30 270.172 200

8–9 3.1142 3
30–38 198.713 175

The minimum cost obtained by the GA based approach along Table 7

LOSI values for IEEE 118-bus test system.
with the optimal decision variables are given in Table 2. The algo-
rithm took 129 s to reach the optimal solution. S. no. Branches LOSI value
Corresponding to these decision variables, it was found that all 1 8–30 1.2208
the state variables satisfy the lower and upper limits. 2 30–38 0.8358
The secured optimal solution obtained by this algorithm does 3 30–17 0.7199
not violate any constraints, whereas the optimal solution reported
in [1] violates line loading limit under contingencies 1–2 and 28–27
that have satisfactory diversity characteristics and span the entire
and the results given in [25] violates some line loading limit under
pareto optimal front. Out of these, two optimal solutions which are
contingency 1–2. Further, the fuel cost obtained by the proposed
the extreme points of Fig. 3 that represent the best installation cost
algorithm is less than the value reported in [26] for the same IEEE
and best fuel cost are given in Table 4. The best compromise solu-
30-bus system.
tions which were found from Eqs. (20) and (21) are given in Table 5.
In all cases, the value of SI is zero, which shows that the proposed
7.2. Case 2: multi-objective SCOPF in IEEE 30-bus system
approach is able to alleviate the line overload.
In this case, the multi-objective genetic algorithm was applied
to enhance the security of the system for the first three contingen-
cies. The LOSI values are calculated using (3) for each branch of the
studied system for the severe contingencies. The top two branches
which posses high values of LOSI are listed in Table 3.
The TCSC are placed in these two lines. It is assumed that the
impedance of all TCSC can be varied within 50% of the correspond-
ing branch impedance. Generator active power, generator bus bar
voltages and the reactance values of TCSC are taken as the decision
variables and the problem was handled as a multi-objective opti-
mization problem with TCSC installation cost and generator fuel
cost as objectives to be minimized simultaneously. For the consid-
ered power system, the MOGA was applied considering several sets
of parameters in order to prove its capability to provide acceptable
trade-offs close to the Pareto Optimal Front (POF). In all simulation,
the following parameters were used:
Number of generation: 100, population size: 50, cross over prob-
ability: 0.9 and mutation probability: 0.01.
The pareto optimal front obtained for the three contingency
cases are plotted in Fig. 3. It is worth mentioning that the proposed
approach has produced 16 pareto optimal solutions in a single run Fig. 4. Pareto-optimal front for the severe contingency.

Table 8
Pareto optimal solutions for the most severe contingencies.

Control variables Minimum fuel cost solution Minimum installation cost solution

P10 , P12 , P25 , P26 , P31 , P46 , P49 , P54 , P59 , P61 , P65 , P66 , 201.8711, 108.6736, 219.7154, 264.0657, 19.7902, 220.8711, 118.76, 148.7154, 283.0657, 53.87,
P69 , P80 , P87 , P89 , P100 , P103 , P111 28.5594, 213.0799, 63.3050, 199.4073, 156.4032, 48.5594, 240.19, 75.3050, 219.43, 178.32, 361.8,
331.5864, 231.4445, 201.6571, 405.5204, 12.7802, 245.4445, 257.3, 451.04, 64.82, 417.03, 201.2229,
215.6403, 223.2229, 35.7076, 52.6144 73.7, 70.6144

V1 , V4 , V6 , V8 , V10 , V12 , V15 , V18 , V19 , V24 , V25 , V26 ,
V27 , V31 , V32 , V34 , V36 , V40 , V42 , V46 , V49 , V54 , V55 ,
V56 , V59 , V61 , V62 , V65 , V66 , V69 , V70 , V72 , V73 , V74 ,
V76 , V77 , V80 , V85 , V87 , V89 , V90 , V91 , V92 , V99 , V100 ,
V103 , V104 , V105 , V107 , V110 , V111 , V112 , V113 , V116
0.9726, 1.0394, 0.9917, 1.0375, 1.0130, 0.9885,
1.0116, 1.0203, 1.0143, 1.0113, 1.0300, 1.0524,
1.0165, 0.9868, 1.0045, 1.0221, 1.0192, 0.9945,
0.9821, 1.0025, 1.0364, 1.0183, 1.0046, 1.0100,
1.0052, 0.9957, 1.0280, 1.0044, 1.0255, 1.0447,
1.0222, 1.0136, 1.0309, 0.9894, 0.9789, 1.0158,
1.0357, 0.9940, 1.0149, 0.9870, 0.9874, 0.9646,
0.9798, 1.0290, 1.0258, 1.0143, 0.9949, 0.9902,
0.9614, 0.9973, 1.0222, 0.9608, 1.0302, 1.0136
1.0147, 1.0354, 1.0196, 0.9611, 0.9503, 1.0138,
0.9922, 1.0095, 0.9943, 1.0355, 1.0558, 1.0279,
0.9904, 1.0105, 0.9960, 1.0072, 1.0141, 0.9698,
0.9788, 1.0030, 1.0244, 0.9938, 1.0155, 1.0017,
1.0401, 1.0487, 1.0324, 1.0381, 1.0169, 1.0543,
1.0396, 1.0285, 1.0136, 1.0088, 0.9888, 0.9887,
0.9868, 1.0127, 1.0301, 1.0408, 0.9724, 0.9825,
1.0116, 0.9884, 1.0239, 1.0335, 1.0118, 1.0091,
1.0157, 1.0248, 1.0231, 1.0369, 1.0208, 0.9868

TCSC (line outage 8–5) −0.5000, −0.4464, −0.3850 −0.4495, −0.1831, −0.2335
Fuel cost ($/h) 2.202 × 105 3.61 × 105
Installation cost ($) 5.37 × 105 4.02 × 105
 R.N. Banu, D. Devaraj / Applied Soft Computing 12 (2012) 2756–2764
Table 9
Best compromise solution for the IEEE 118-bus system.
Control variables
P10 , P12 , P25 , P26 , P31 , P46 , P49 , P54 , P59 , P61 , P65 , P66 , P69 , P80 , P87 , P89 , P100 , P103 ,
P111
V1 , V4 , V6 , V8 , V10 , V12 , V15 , V18 , V19 , V24 , V25 , V26 , V27 , V31 , V32 , V34 , V36 , V40 , V42 ,
V46 , V49 , V54 , V55 , V56 , V59 , V61 , V62 , V65 , V66 , V69 , V70 , V72 , V73 , V74 , V76 , V77 , V80 ,
V85 , V87 , V89 , V90 , V91 , V92 , V99 , V100 , V103 , V104 , V105 , V107 , V110 , V111 , V112 , V113 ,
V116
TCSC (line outage 8–5)
Fuel cost ($/h)
Installation cost ($)
7.3. Case 3: multi-objective SCOPF in IEEE 118-bus system
In this case, the proposed algorithm was applied to alleviate
the line overload under contingency condition in the IEEE 118-bus
system. Contingency analysis was conducted on this system and
the top three contingencies are produced in Table 6 along with the
overloaded lines and the severity index value. LOSI values for the
optimal location of TCSC are given in Table 7. Based on LOSI value,
three locations were identified for the installation of TCSC to alle-
viate the line overload. In this case, the proposed algorithm was
applied to enhance the security of the system for the first severe
contingency.
The best results of the MOGA were obtained with the following
algorithm parameters:
Number of generation: 120, population size: 50, cross over prob-
ability: 0.9 and mutation probability: 0.01.
The pareto optimal front obtained for the first severe contin-
gency case is plotted in Fig. 4. From the pareto front, two optimal
solutions which are the extreme points of Fig. 4 that represents the
best installation cost and best fuel cost are given in Table 8. The best
compromise solutions are given in Table 9. Corresponding to this
control variable it is found that there is no limit violation in any of
the state variables in the base case and also in contingency cases.
8. Conclusion
In this paper, the security enhancement task has been
formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem and multi-
objective genetic algorithm was applied to solve the same. The
location of TCSC was identified based on Line Overload Sensitivity
Index. It has considered as optimization criteria, the minimiza-
tion of fuel cost and installation cost of TCSC. The algorithm has
been tested on the standard IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 118-bus test sys-
tems. The proposed multi-objective GA has performed well when
it was used to characterize pareto optimal front of the multi-
objective optimal power flow problem. The MOGA emphasizes
non-dominated solutions and simultaneously maintains diversity
in the non-dominated solutions. In future, the proposed approach
can be applied to solve security-constrained optimal power flow
problems with multi-type FACTS devices.
Appendix A. Severity index
The severity of a contingency to line overload may be expressed
in terms of the following severity index, which express the stress
on the power system in the post contingency period:
L0  2m
 Sl
severity index (SIC ) = (A.1)
Slmax
l=1
2763
Optimal control variable settings
204.8711, 108.6736, 229.7154, 284.0657, 9.79, 28.55, 213.07, 63.30, 199.40,
156.40, 331.58, 319.44, 201.65, 405.52, 12.78, 215.64, 223.22, 35.70, 52.61
1.0170, 0.9648, 0.9495, 1.0005, 0.9864, 1.0507, 0.9824, 1.0291, 1.0121, 0.9777,
1.0203, 1.0141, 1.0107, 0.9481, 0.9748, 1.0364, 0.9709, 0.9687, 1.0399, 1.0031,
0.9729, 1.0442, 1.0132, 1.0404, 0.9712, 0.9801, 0.9739, 0.9489, 0.9581, 0.9952,
1.0188, 0.9857, 1.0040, 1.0032, 0.9750, 0.9960, 0.9874, 0.9535, 0.9646, 0.9762,
1.0311, 1.0184, 1.0209, 0.9675, 0.9945, 0.9959, 1.0132, 1.0086, 0.9639, 0.9524,
0.9541, 0.9744, 1.0217, 1.0083
−0.5000, −0.289, −0.4120
2.7402 × 105
4.38 × 105
where Sl = MVA flow in line ‘l’; Slmax = MVA rating of the line ‘l’.
L0 = set of overloaded lines. m = integer exponent.
Larger the severity index value a contingency has, the more
severe it will be. The line flows in (A.1) are obtained from
Newton–Raphson load flow calculations. While using the above
severity index for security assessment, only the overloaded lines
are considered to avoid masking effect.
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Dr. D. Devaraj is a graduate from Thiagarajar College
of Engineering in Electrical and Electronics Engineering
(1992). He did his Masters in Power System Engineer-
ing from Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai (1994). He
obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technol-
ogy, Chennai (2000) with specialization in power systems
engineering. His research interests include power system
engineering, power system automation, power system
simulation, computational intelligent techniques, intel-
ligent control techniques. He is currently working as a
senior professor and Dean (research and development) in
the Kalasalingam University, Krishnankoil, Tamil Nadu.

Dr. R. Narmatha Banu is an associate professor in

Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
Kalasalingam University, Tamil Nadu, South India. She
completed her B.E. (EEE) degree in Mohammed Sathak
Engineering College, Kilakarai, Tamil Nadu, India in the
year 1999 and M.E. (Power System Engg) degree in Anna-
malai University, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu in the year
2002. She pursued Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Anna University, Chennai in the year 2010.
Her area of interest is Power system Security, Genetic
Algorithm and FACTS devices. She has got the Young Scien-
tist Award for the year 2009 from Tamil Nadu State Council
for Science and Technology (established by Government
of Tamil Nadu).