Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 2839–2858

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Ain Shams Engineering Journal

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Electrical Engineering

Optimal location and size of photovoltaic systems in high voltage

transmission power networks
Bach Hoang Dinh a, Thuan Thanh Nguyen b, Thang Trung Nguyen a, Thai Dinh Pham c,⇑
a
Power System Optimization Research Group, Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Viet Nam
b
Faculty of Electrical Engineering Technology, Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Viet Nam
c
Institute of Research and Development, Duy Tan University, Danang 550000, Viet Nam

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

Article history: This paper presents Water Cycle Algorithm (WCA) to solve the Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem with
Received 18 May 2020 and without renewable energy sources. WCA has been tested on IEEE 30, 57, and 118-bus transmission
Revised 24 August 2020 networks to find minimum fuel cost. Main parameters of WCA have been set to different values for sur-
Accepted 18 December 2020
veying the real performance and the best settings of the parameters have led to better results than those
Available online 31 March 2021
of previous methods. In addition, the best appropriate parameters have also supported WCA in finding
the best location of a Photovoltaic system (PVS) in the first network. WCA could reach less power loss
Keywords:
than two other metaheuristics, especially reaching much less power loss than the case without PVS.
Optimal power flow
Fitness function
Consequently, WCA with the most appropriate parameter settings is really a powerful search method
Fuel cost function in terms of quick convergence speed and high-quality global optimum for the OPF problem with large-
Photovoltaic system scale power networks.
Water Cycle Algorithm Ó 2021 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams Uni-
versity. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Optimal Power Flow (OPF) is a vital function of the power sys-
tem analyses for planning and studying operation. The OPF
approaches have been developed by combining the optimization
and load flow algorithm so that setting control parameters of
power systems, i.e. power generators, node voltages, compensation
volumes, etc. are determined by optimizing single or multi objec-
tives but always satisfying main constraints [1]. In modern power
systems, especially in electricity markets, OPF is a complicated
problem due to the large scale non-convex and non-linear opti-
mization characteristics as well as the multi-task control aims,
which are operating cost, power losses, overload of transmission
lines, load voltage deviation, system voltage instability, etc. [2,3].
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: dinhhoangbach@tdtu.edu.vn (B.H. Dinh), nguyenthanhthuan@
iuh.edu.vn (T.T. Nguyen), nguyentrungthang@tdtu.edu.vn (T.T. Nguyen), phamdinhthai@
duytan.edu.vn (T.D. Pham).
Peer review under responsibility of Ain Shams University.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
Therefore, the OPF is a fundamental tool for all processes of plan-
ning, operation and control of network dispatch centers and utili-
ties. Moreover, with the advances in computing capability and
new optimization algorithms, OPF could contribute to various
applications in power system operations, especially in transmis-
sion systems where the network reconstruction solutions are
involved various constraints and many different conditions inves-
tigated in scheduled period [4].
So far several analytical and conventionally advanced program-
ing methods have been used to solve the OPF problem, such as
gradient based method [1], quadratic programming (QP) [5],
Newton-based method [6,7], linear programming (LP) [8,9], non-
linear programming (NLP) [9] and interior point (IP) methods
[10]. However, as analyzed in [1,6,11], these traditional techniques
could not solve the complex objective functions which are not dif-
ferentiable as well as the presence of complicated constraints. The
convergence property of the NLP based OPF is insufficient due to
possibly occurring local minimums. On the other hand, the LP
based methods is unable to deal with the optimization problems
whose cost function is non-smooth. The QP based approaches
can be used just for the approximation case of the exact cost func-
tion by its piece-wise quadratic equivalents. And more importance,
all of these mentioned approaches are unable to solve the multi-
optimization problems. Therefore, the conventional solutions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2020.12.015
2090-4479/Ó 2021 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Bach Hoang Dinh, Thuan Thanh Nguyen, Thang Trung Nguyen et al.
Nomenclature
Qsci Reactive power generation of the ith capacitor bank
TCi Tap value of the transformer i
NTc Number of transformers in transmission network
VLi The ith load bus voltage magnitude
NLb Number of load buses in transmission network
Nl Number of transmission lines
SLm Apparent power flow in the mth transmission line
b Acceleration factor
Ds The random matric number between zero and one
e, e1 The random number between zero and one
FFk Fitness value of the kth considered solution
FF sea Fitness value of the sea
FF rriv er Fitness function of the rth river
FF sstream Fitness function of the sth stream
based on the mathematical programming techniques may not
guarantee to converge to the global optimal point of general OPF
problems with non-convex objective functions, complicated con-
straint conditions and unable to solve multi-optimal purposes.
Instead of using conventional methods, alternative meta-
heuristic algorithms can be a promising and reliable trend to solve
the comprehensive OPF problems.
The meta-heuristic algorithms [11] differ from the conventional
optimization approaches in principle. The conventional optimiza-
tion algorithms use a single solution updated at every iteration
and also mainly use the mathematical techniques, e.g. gradient
descent method, for approaching the optimum solution. Its optimal
calculation starts from a random guess solution and then tries to
move to a better solution based on some pre-specified transition
rule where its search direction is derived from considering the
local information. Whereas, the meta-heuristics optimization
approaches implement the non-deterministic optimal search that
bases on the iterative improvement of candidate solutions to solve
complicated problems, which are very difficult or unable to solve
by conventional methods [11,12]. They can be seen as the search-
ing group in which many candidate solutions (tens to hundreds)
can be simultaneously created and compared over several itera-
tions. The search is continued for a number of times and the better
updated solutions, which are created from randomly heuristic
ways will replace to the older and poorer ones to rank the best
solutions. A multi-directional search is performed to find a best
solution not only on a local area but also the global space. How-
ever, their computational burden is too high and calculation time
must be longer than that of conventional approaches. Various
examples of meta-heuristic algorithms used for solving the OPF
problems can be listed in [13–42]. They can be applied to solve
the OPF with single or multi objectives. For single objective, the
OPF just determines the minimum cost and one of most popular
algorithms is based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) [13]
and its modified versions, such as Evolving Ant Direction Particle
Swarm Optimization (EADPSO) [14], Improved Particle Swarm
Optimization (IPSO) [15], Graphics Processing Units Particle
Swarm Optimization (GPU-PSO) [16], Particle Swarm Optimization
and Pattern Search (PSO-PS) [17], and Hybrid Canonical Differen-
tial Evolutionary Particle Swarm Optimization (HC-DEEPSO) [18].
Another trend is based on Differential Evolution (DE) [19] and
the modified versions, such as Constraint Handling Techniques
with Differential Evolution (CHT-DE), Superiority of Feasibly
solutions with Differential Evolution (SP-DE) [20], and Efficient
Evolutionary Algorithm (EEA) [21]. The list can be added by
Biogeography-Based Optimization (BBO) [22], Adaptive Real Coded
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Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 2839–2858
iter The current iteration
Miter The maximum iteration
Np Population size
Nsr The sum of rivers and the sea
Nr Number of rivers
Nstr Number of streams
NS Number streams flowing into the sea or rivers
Tolpre Maximum distance between two solutions
Wsea Position of the sea
W rriv er Position of the rth river
W sstream Position of the sth stream
Npv The number of PV systems installed in the considered
system
Biogeography-Based Optimization (ARCBBO) [23], Improved Krill
Herd Algorithm (IKHA) [24], Developed Grey Wolf Optimizer
(DGWO) [25], Cuckoo Optimization Algorithm (COA) [26],
Improved Colliding Bodies Optimization (ICBO) [27], Moth Swarm
Algorithm (MSA) [28], Water Cycle Algorithm (WCA) [29],
Improved Bat Algorithm (IBA) [30], Tree-Seed Algorithm (TSA)
[31], Modified Sine-Cosine Algorithm (MSCA) [32], and High Per-
formance Social Spider Optimization (HP-SSO) [33]. Moreover,
meta-heuristic approaches for the multi-objective OPF problems
can be mentioned here such as Self-adaptive Penalty with Differen-
tial Evolution (SAP-DE) [20], EEA [21], Dragonfly Algorithm and
Particle Swarm Optimization (DA-PSO) [34], Modified Teaching–
Learning Based Optimization (MTLBO) [35], Multi-Objective Modi-
fied Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (MOMICA) [36], Decoupled
Quadratic Load Flow with Enhanced Genetic Algorithm (EGA–
DQLF) [37], Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP)
[38], Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) [39], Enhanced Ant Colony
Optimization (EACO) [40], and Moth-Flame Optimizer (MFO)
[41]. Furthermore, for the modern power systems integrated to
renewable sources, OPF based meta-heuristic algorithms can
determine not only the optimally operational variables but also
the best location for installing renewable sources. In [42], a Modi-
fied Coyote Optimization Algorithm (MCOA) has been proposed to
solve the OPF problem for the IEEE 30-bus system with the place-
ment of a Photovoltaic Source (PVS).
In this paper, a new approach based on Water Cycle Algorithm
(WCA) has been proposed to solve the OPF problem. This method
inspires from the natural water cycles where fundamental concepts
and ideas are based on the observation of water cycle process and
the way of rivers and streams flowing to the sea [12]. It has been suc-
cessfully applied to various constrained optimization problems in
electrical engineering field. In this research, the effectiveness of
the Water Cycle Algorithm (WCA) has been evaluated by the perfor-
mance in four test systems where their optimal power flow solutions
are discovered according to a single objective function of minimiz-
ing fuel cost. The simulation results have been compared to those
of various similar algorithms and they have proved the capability
of the proposed approach in solving the OPF problem.
In summary, the novelties of the paper are as follows:
1) Present the implementation of WCA for OPF problem where
PV systems are placed for minimizing total fuel cost of ther-
mal units,
2) Observe the impact of control parameters on the real perfor-
mance of WCA for OPF problem with and without the pres-
ence of PV systems.
Bach Hoang Dinh, Thuan Thanh Nguyen, Thang Trung Nguyen et al. Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 2839–2858

Thanks to the novelties and promising results from simulation, thermal unit; ai, bi and ci are the cost function’ coefficients for the
the main contributions of the paper are stated as follows: ith unit.
Moreover, the OPF problem is a constrained optimization issue
1) Reach the most appropriate settings of control parameters of where two of the most important balance constraint functions G(x,
WCA for the best performance in solving OPF problem with- u) of the power systems are real and reactive power balances
out and with the placement of PV systems, which can keep frequency within the strictly determined value
2) Reach the valid solutions of OPF problem with and without and voltage within the allowable range, respectively. It reflects
the presence of PV systems, the power equality between generation and demand plus loss in
3) Provide good solutions with lower total fuel cost than those transmission lines. The two balanced conditions can be coupled
from previous methods, in one equation system as:
4) Show the significance of PV systems in reducing fuel cost of    
DP i Pi ðV; hÞ  ðPGi  PDi Þ
thermal units in transmission power networks. ¼ ¼0 ð4Þ
DQ i Q i ðV; hÞ  ðQ Gi  Q Di Þ
Other parts of the article are as follows. Next section introduces
where DPi and DQi are, respectively, active and reactive power error
the OPF problem formulation. Then, the main ideas of Water Cycle
at the ith bus where generators and loads are present; PGi and QGi
Algorithm are presented by Section 3 and Section 4 proposes a
are, respectively, active power and reactive power of generator at
searching procedure based on WCA for solving the OPF problem.
the bus i; PDi and QDi are, respectively, active and reactive power
The simulation results and discussion are mentioned in detail in
of load at the bus i; and Pi(V,h) and Qi(V,h) are respectively active
Section 5. Finally, the paper’s contributions and the effectiveness
and reactive power injection to the bus i and are determined by:
of the proposed method are expressed in the last section.
X
NB
 
Pi ðV; hÞ ¼ V i V j Gij coshij þ Bij sinhij ð5Þ
2. OPF problem formulation j¼1

In general, the solution of OPF problem aims to optimize one or X

NB
 
more the considered objective functions by adjusting power sys- Q i ðV; hÞ ¼ V i V j Gij sinhij þ cosBij hij ð6Þ
tem control variables while satisfying various equality and j¼1

inequality constraints [1]. The most expensive power source that

where NB is the number of buses; Bij and Gij are, respectively, the
supplies electricity to transmission networks is thermal power
susceptance and conductance of line ij; Vi and Vj are voltage magni-
plants, which use fossil fuels with expensive cost. So, the main
tude at the buses i and j; and hij is the voltage phase angle deviation
objective of the OPF problem is to reach fuel cost reduction for
between the ith bus and the jth bus.
these thermal power plants.
In other hand, there are always imbalanced constraints in the
Generally, the OPF problem can be formulated by the following
OPF problem to reflect the physical limit of devices as well as the
expressions:
criteria created to ensure the system’s stability. The constraints
! are expressed in the following inequalities:
X
K
Minimise J k ðx; uÞ ð1Þ
k¼1 - Generator’s power and voltage limits: Three main factors of
Subject to: each generators including active power (PGi), reactive power
(QGi) and voltage magnitude (VGi) are always seriously super-
Gðx; uÞ ¼ 0 and Hðx; uÞ 6 0 ð2Þ vised and must be satisfied the working range as shown in
the three inequalities below:
where Jk (x, u) is an specific objective function; K specifies to objec-
tive number; x and u are the state and control variable vectors in Pmin max
Gi 6 P Gi 6 P Gi ; i ¼ 1; :::; NG ð7Þ
power systems; G(x, u) is the balance constraints regarding state
and control variables; H(x, u) is the physical limitation of control
variables. Q min max
Gi 6 Q Gi 6 Q Gi ; i ¼ 1; :::; NG ð8Þ
The x vector includes reactive power of the generator (QG), load
bus voltage (VL), apparent power of the transmission line (Sline) as V min max
Gi 6 V Gi 6 V Gi ; i ¼ 1; :::; NG ð9Þ
well as active power of slack bus (PSlack). The u vector consists of
voltage of generator bus (VG), active power of generator (PG) where VGi is the voltage magnitude of the ith generator; Pmin
Gi and
excluding the largest one at the slack bus, transformer tap value Pmax
Gi , Q min max min max
Gi and Q Gi , and V Gi and V Gi are minimum and maximum
(TC), and compensation capacity (QC). active power, reactive power and voltage magnitude of the ith
Thus, as shown in (1), the OPF problem can be modeled differ- generator.
ently by various optimal types according to the purpose of dis-
patched operations and how to integrate them together. It could - Shunt compensator boundaries: Reactive power generation of
be single or multi objectives depending to the optimal functions the ith capacitor bank must exactly obey its limits as shown
which are considered. For example, in this paper, we want to find in the following inequality.
out the optimal fuel cost (FC) of thermal units in a complex power
system. Thus, the objective function is the fuel costs of active Q min max
sci 6 Q sci 6 Q sci ; i ¼ 1; ::::; Nsc ð10Þ
power values of all generators as shown in Eq. (3) below:
! where Q min max
sci and Q sci are minimum and maximum reactive power of
X
NG
the ith capacitor bank.
MinimiseðJ ¼ FCÞ ¼ Minimise ai þ bi PGi þ cj P2Gi ð3Þ
i¼1
- Transformer’s load-tap-changer constraints: The setting of tap
where NG is the number of generators including the highest power for the transformer should not be beyond the minimum tap
unit at the slack bus, PGi is the generated active power by the ith and the maximum tap and must satisfy the inequality below:
2841
Bach Hoang Dinh, Thuan Thanh Nguyen, Thang Trung Nguyen et al.
TC min
i 6 TC i 6 TC max
i ; i ¼ 1; :::; NTc ð11Þ
where TC min
i and TC max
i are minimum and maximum tap changer
voltage of the ith transformer.
- Load voltage constraints according to the operation voltage cri-
teria of load buses: The voltage magnitude at each load bus
must be within the working range as the model below:
V min
L 6 V Li 6 V max
L ; i ¼ 1; :::; NLb ð12Þ
where V min and V max are minimum and maximum voltage of all load
L L
buses in the network
- Transmission line power constraint: Apparent flow in each
transmission line must not be higher than the transmission line
capacity as shown in the inequality below:
SLm 6 Smax
Lm ; m ¼ 1; :::; Nl ð13Þ
where SLm and Smax
Lmare the running and maximum apparent power
flows of the mth transmission line.
As installing PV systems in load buses, the rated power (PPVi)
and the location (LPVi) of each PV system must be constrained by:
LPV min 6 LPV i 6 LPV max ; i ¼ 1; :::; Npv ð14Þ
PPV min
i 6 PPV i 6 PPV max
i ; i ¼ 1; :::; Npv ð15Þ
min max
In Eq. (14), LPV and LPV are minimum location and maxi-
mum location that PV system can be installed. The two locations
are, respectively, bus 2 and bus NLb. In Eq. (15), PPV min i and
PPV max
i are minimum and maximum rated power of the ith PV sys-
tem among Npv PV systems. The minimum rated power can be
selected to be 0 MW whereas the maximum rated power can be
equal to the load at installed bus. If the PPVi is calculated to be
0 MW, it means at the ith bus, the PV system should not be
installed.
In recent years, PV systems have been studied for reaching the
best performance as connected in power grids to reduce active
power supplied from power sources [43,44]. If the main parame-
ters of PV systems can be estimated exactly, their benefit is signif-
icant [45–48]. In addition, when connecting PV system in power
grid, if post fault condition happens, the terminal voltage has to
recover at least 90% of the nominal voltage within 1.5 s since the
fault happens. So, employed inverters in PV systems must be
strong enough to deal with large-scale network disturbances to
accomplish the network code requests [49,50]. In this paper, we
suppose that the employed PV systems can reach the best perfor-
mance as shown in [43,44]] and avoid serious faults by using
highly effective inverters as pointed out in [49,50]. So, the main
duty of the paper is to determine the best location and the best
capacity for PV systems satisfying constraints (14) and (15).
3. Optimal search based Water Cycle Algorithm
Water Cycle Algorithm (WCA) was developed based on the nat-
ure phenomena of the sea, rivers and streams [12]. The population
Np consists of one sea, Nsr rivers and Nstr streams. Thus, Np is the
sum of the number of rivers, the number of streams and one sea
(i.e. Np = Nsr + Nstr + 1). The whole search process of WCA can
be explained in detail as follows.
3.1. Procedures for implementing WCA Algorithm
Step 1: Create the initial population and classify solutions.
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Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 2839–2858
The initial set of solutions, called W = [Wk] where k = 1,. . ., Np, is
randomly produced within the predetermined range as follows:
 
W k ¼ W min þ e: W max  W min ; k ¼ 1; 2; :::; Np ð16Þ
where Wk is the kth solution in the current population; and Wmin
and Wmax are minimum and maximum solutions which contain
minimum and maximum values of control variables, respectively.
After producing solutions, the solution’s quality is evaluated
according to the fitness function. Based on the value of fitness
functions, all solutions are ranked in an increasing order from
low to high values of fitness functions. Consequently, the best solu-
tion with the smallest fitness is stood in the first position and the
worst solution with the highest fitness is put in the last position.
The first solution is called the sea. From the second solution to
the (Nsr + 1)th solution are called the rivers while the remaining
solutions are the streams. This description can be summarized as
follows:

W ¼ W sea ; W rriv er ; W sstream ; r ¼ 1; :::; Nsr and s ¼ 1; :::; Nstr ð17Þ

FF ¼ FF sea ; FF rriv er ; FF sstream ; r ¼ 1; :::; Nsr and s ¼ 1; :::; Nstr: ð18Þ
where Wsea is the best solution corresponding to the sea; W rriv er and
W sstream correspond to the rth river solution and the sth stream solu-
tion, respectively. FF sea , FF rriv er and FF sstream are the fitness functions
corresponding to the sea, the rth river and the sth stream,
respectively.
For better understanding of flows and the position of solutions,
all the solutions are rewritten in the following range:
W sea ¼ W 1 ð19Þ
W rriv er ¼ W k ; k ¼ 2; 3; :::; Nsr þ 1; r ¼ 1; 2; :::; Nsr ð20Þ
W sstream ¼ W k ; k ¼ ðNsr þ 2Þ; ðNsr þ 3Þ:::; Np; s
¼ 1; 2; ::; Nstr ð21Þ
Step 2: Determine the number of streams flowing the sea and
rivers
This step aims to produce new solutions. In WCA, the sea and
each river have their own streams, moreover, the number of
streams that flows into the sea and rivers isn’t fixed and deter-
mined by:
( )
Costi
NSi ¼ round j PNsr jNstr ; i ¼ 1; 2;:::; Nsr ð22Þ
n¼1 Costn
where Costi ¼ FF i  FF 1stream ; i ¼ 1; 2;:::; Nsr . (23)
After calculating the number of streams flowing into the sea
and each river, we will check and decide the further steps as
follows:
P
If Nsr
i¼1 NSi is equal to Nstr, NSi (i = 1, . . ., Nsr) is adopted.
P
If Nsr
i¼1 NSi is less than Nstr, the number of streams flowing into
the sea (i.e. NS1) must be recalculated by using the following
model:
X
Nsr
NS1 ¼ NS1 þ ðNstr  NSi Þ ð24Þ
i¼1
P
And if Nsri¼1 NSi is higher than Nstr, WCA decreases one stream in
the total streams flowing into the last river (i.e. NSNstr = NSNstr  1)
P
and then recalculate Nsr i¼1 NSi . If the equality condition is still not
satisfied, the number of streams flowing into the last river is
decreased until it reaches to zero. In that case, another front river will
be adopted to reduce its stream number (i.e. NSNSr-1 = NSNSr-1–1). The
action is repeated until the equality condition happens.
Bach Hoang Dinh, Thuan Thanh Nguyen, Thang Trung Nguyen et al.
Step 3: Create new streams flowing into the sea
This step aims to produce new streams flowing into the sea. It is
similar to producing new solutions by using old streams and the
sea. The following model is applied.
W sstream ¼ W sstream þ e:b:ðW sea  W sstream Þ; s ¼ 1; :::; NS1
Each new stream is created by Eq. (25) and then the corre-
sponding fitness function is also calculated for comparison. If a
new stream has better fitness than the sea, it replaces the sea
and the old sea becomes the new stream. The same process will
be applied to next streams until s is equal to NS1.
Step 4: Create new streams flowing into rivers
This step aims to produce new streams for each river and it is
also similar to the new update of old solutions. In contrast to the
process of producing new streams for the sea, each river and the
sth old stream are used to generate a change step. Finally, the sth
new stream is created around the old one with the determined
change step. The equation below expresses the updated streams.
W sstream ¼ W sstream þ e:b:ðW rriv er  W sstream Þ
 P  P
where r is from 1 to Nr and s is from 1 þ ri¼1 NSi to
After producing one new stream, its fitness function is immedi-
ately calculated and then compared to that of the rth river. If the qual-
ity of the new stream is better than that of the river, the river and the
new stream are swapped each other. And then, the new river will be
also compared to the sea and their positions would be exchanged if
that new river has a better quality than the current sea.
Step 5: Create new rivers flowing into the sea
It is noted that the current rivers and the rivers at step 1 could
be completely different; however, the new generation of rivers is
not accomplished until this step where each river in turn is newly
produced based on the old river and the sea as shown in the fol-
lowing model:
W rriv er ¼ W rriv er þ e:b:ðW sea  W rriv er Þ; r ¼ 1; 2; :::; Nr
After one river is newly updated, its quality is determined and
compared to the sea. New river and the sea will be exchanged if
the sea quality is lower than that new river quality. Similarly, Eq.
(27) is executed for the next river until r reaches Nr.
Step 6: The evaporation operation
The evaporation operation aims to produce new streams. This
also diversifies the current population by producing new solutions
with two different ways. The first one is to search solution around
the sea while another is to randomly produce solutions within a
range of the permissive bounds. Its purpose is to help the searching
process to overcome the possible traps of locally optimal points. In
order to select the appropriate way, the distance between each
stream s and the sea (Dssea ) as well as the distance between each river
r and the sea (Drsea ) are calculated in advance and then compared to a
predetermined tolerance, called Tolpre. A large value of Tolpre expands
the search far from the sea while a small value makes the scanning
areas closed to the sea. Thus, new streams are produced based on
pseudo codes shown in Algorithm 1 and Algorithm 2 as follows.
Algorithm 1 (Produce new streams for the sea).
For s = 1 to NS1
Calculate distance Dssea between the sth stream and the sea
If (Dssea < Tolpre )
Randomly produce an updated step Ds
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
W sstream ¼ W sea þ 0:1Ds (28)
end
end
Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 2839–2858
Algorithm 2 (Produce new streams for each river).
For r = 1 to Nr
ð25Þ Calculate distance Drsea between each river r and the sea
If (Drsea < Tolpre ) or (e1 < 0:1)
(where e1 is a random number within 0 and 1)
 
W sstream ¼ W min þ e: W max  W min ;
P P
s ¼ 1 þ ri¼1 NSi ; :::; rþ1
i¼1 NSi (29)
end
end
After implementing Algorithm 1 and Algorithm 2, if new
streams are produced, the old streams will be replaced with their
new ones. It is noted that all new streams in this step are not eval-
uated because their purpose is just to diversify the solution set.
ð26Þ
Furthermore, the sea and the rivers with better quality than the

rþ1 new streams are still retained in the current population.
i¼1 NSi .
The evaporation operation for the next iteration can be limited
by reducing the value of Tolpre as the following model:
Tolpre
Tolpre ¼ Tolpre  ð30Þ
M iter
The iterative algorithm for solving a typical optimization prob-
lem by using WCA is presented in Fig. 1.
4. Apply the Water Cycle Algorithm to the OPF problem
4.1. Initialization
Similar to other metaheuristic algorithms, control variables of
ð27Þ WCA have to be selected appropriately for the specific optimiza-
tion problems of power systems. In the study, WCA and
MATPOWER program 4.0 are combined together to determine
the optimal power flow of the considered power systems in which
WCA provides high quality control variables as inputs for MAT-
POWER program and then MATPOWER will run to find all state
variables. Such inputs are the parameters of generators excluding
the slack bus (active power and voltage), setting of transformer’s
load-tap changer, and the reactive power of compensators. As con-
sidering the installation of PV systems in load buses, there must be
two more control parameters that are the installed location and the
rated power of the PV systems. It is noted that the position must be
an integer value whereas the value from WCA is continuous. So, the
continuous value must be rounded before calculating the active
power that load require thermal generators. The obtained depen-
dent variables after running MATPOWER program are the load
voltages, the generator’s active power, the generator’s reactive
power, and the apparent power flowing all branches. So, the initial
set of solutions, Wk, randomly initialized by using Eq. (16) is
described as Eq. (31) below:
W k ¼ fLPV 1;k ;:::; LPV Npv ;k ; PPV 1;k ;:::; PPV Npv ;k ; P2;k ; :::; PN;k ;
V 1;k ; :::; V N;k ; TC 1;k ; :::; TC Ntb ;s ; Q sc1;k ; :::; Q scNcb ;k g T ; k ¼ 1; :::; Np
ð31Þ
where LPV1,k and LPVNpv,k are the positions of the first PV system and
the Npvth PV system; PPV1,k and PPVNpv,k are the rated power of the
first PV system and the Npvth PV system; P2,k and PN,k are active
power of the 2nd generator and the Nth generator in the kth solution;
V1,k and VN,k are voltage of the 2nd generator and the Nth generator
in the kth solution; TC1,k and TCNtb,k are tap changer of the first trans-
former and the Ntbth transformer in the kth solution; Qsc1,k and
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Fig. 1. The application of WCA for a typical optimization problem.

QSCNcb,k are reactive power of the first capacitor and the Ncbth capac- W min ¼ fLPV min min min min min min
1 ; :::; LPV Npv ; PPV 1 ; :::; PPV Npv ; P 2 ; :::; P N ;
itor in the kth solution. min min min min
V min min
1 ; :::; V N ; TC 1 ; :::; TC N tb ; Q sc1 ; :::; Q scN cb g ;
T
All the power system parameters have to be put between the
lower and upper limits as follows: ð32Þ

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and 4.3. Termination condition

max
W ¼ fLPV max max max
1 ; :::; LPV Npv ; PPV 1 ; :::; PPV max max
Npv ; P 2 ; :::; Pmax
N ;
The execution of searching process based on WCA will be termi-
V max
1 ; :::; V N ; TC 1 ; :::; TC Ntb ; Q max
max max max
sc1 ;
max
:::; Q scNcb g T ; nated if the current iteration iter equals to the maximum number
ð33Þ of iterations Miter.

where LPV min

1 , and LPV min
Npv LPV max
1 , LPV max
are the minimum location
Npv
and the maximum location of the first and the Npvth PV systems; 4.4. The entire search procedure of WCA for finding OPF problem
PPV min min max max solutions
1 , PPV Npv and PPV 1 , PPV Npv are respectively the minimum
and maximum power capacity (rated power) of the first and the
Searching procedure using WCA applied for the OPF problem is
Npvth PV systems.
summarized in Fig. 2 and described as following computation
By running MATPOWER program, other dependent variables are
steps:
obtained and then they are checked and penalized as shown in the
Step 1: Set value for control parameters, Np, Miter, and Tolpre.
following formulas:
Step 2: Produce initial set of solutions by using Eq. (16).
8 Step 3:
>
< 0 if Pmin
1 6 P1;k 6 Pmax
1
DP 1;k ¼ Pmin  P1;k if Pmin > P1;k ð34Þ - Calculate new power of loads after installing PV systems
>
: 1 1
P1;k  Pmax
1 else - Run MATPOWER program for determining all dependent
variables.
8
>
<0 if Q min
i 6 Q i;k 6 Q max
i Step 4: Determine the fitness value of each solution by applying
DQ i;k ¼ Q i;k  Q max if Q max < Q i;k ð35Þ Eq. (38).
>
:
i i
Step 5: Determine the sea, rivers and streams based on the com-
Q min
i  Q i;k else
parison of fitness function values
8 max Step 6: Set Iter = 1 at the current iteration.
< V li;k  V l
> if V li;k > V max
l Step 7: Find the number of streams flowing into the sea and riv-
DV li;k ¼ min
V l  V li;k if V li;k < V min ; i ¼ 1; :::; Nlb ð36Þ ers by applying Eqs. (22)–(24).
>
:
l
0 else Step 8:
(
Sbri;k  Smax if Smax - Create new streams flowing into the sea using Eq. (25).
bri < Sbri;k
DSbri;k ¼ bri
ð37Þ - Verify and correct new solutions by using Eq. (39)
0 else
- Calculate new power of loads after installing PV systems
After having all variables and penalty terms, fitness function is - Run MATPOWER program for determining all dependent
determined by variables
0 1 - Determine the fitness value of new solutions by using Eq. (38)
 2 PN  2 N lb 
P 2 - Compare each new stream to the sea and then exchange their
B J i þ f1 DP1;k þ f2 DQ i;k þ f3 DV li;k C
B i¼1 i¼1 C position if that new stream is better than the sea.
Fitnessk ¼ B C
@ PN tl  2 A
þf4 DSbri;k Step 9:
i¼1

ð38Þ
- Create new streams flowing into rivers using eq. (26)
where n1, n2, n3 and n4 are penalty factors. - Verify and correct new solutions by using Eq. (39)
Applied methods should find exact solutions with high quality - Calculate new power of loads after installing PV systems
for complicated problems [51]. Exact solutions mean all con- - Run MATPOWER program for determining all dependent
straints considered in the problem are exactly satisfied. So, the fit- variables
ness function above plays a very important role in finding the exact - Determine the fitness value of new solutions by using Eq. (38)
solutions. As all constraints are handled by correction method and - Compare each new stream to each of rivers and then exchange
penalized in fitness function, exact solutions will have the same their position if that new stream is better than the considered
values for fitness function and objective function. In addition, if rivers
maximum error of constraints is equal to zero, the obtained solu- - Compare each new stream to the sea and exchange their posi-
tion is adopted [52]. However, the quality of exact solutions is tion if that new stream is better than the sea.
mainly dependent on the search ability of WCA.
Step 10:
4.2. Checking and correcting new solutions
- Create new rivers flowing into the sea using Eq. (27)
After producing new solutions, control variables in each new - Verify and correct new solutions by using Eq. (39)
solution must be verified and corrected by using the following - Calculate new power of loads after installing PV systems
equation: - Run MATPOWER program for determining all dependent
8 new variables
>
< Wk if W min 6 W new
k 6 W max
- Determine the fitness value of new solutions by using Eq. (38)
W new ¼ W max if W max < W new ð39Þ - Compare each new river to the sea and exchange their position
k
>
:
k

W min
k else if that new river is better than the sea.

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Fig. 2. The process of finding optimal solutions by using WCA.

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Step 11: Perform the evaporation operation by using algorithm 5.1. Results in the IEEE 30-bus system without PVS
1 and algorithm 2.
Step 12: If iter = Miter, terminate the searching process. Other- This section introduces the implementation of WCA to find opti-
wise, update Tolpre by using Eq. (30) and go to the next iteration mal solutions for the IEEE 30-bus network and shows the compar-
(i.e. set iter = iter + 1), then continue the searching process from isons of results. The performance comparisons among the different
the step 7. methods are based on the quality factors, such as the optimal cost
values (or also called the best fitness values), the maximum num-
ber of iterations (Miter), the population size (Np), and the number of
5. Simulation results
new generated solutions (NNGS) in which NNGS is calculated by
multiplying Np and MIter. The obtained results show that WCA
The WCA method was tested on a variety of benchmark func-
won the best optimal cost value among all other Meta-heuristic
tions and the results were reported in [12]. For applications in
algorithms. As shown in Table 1, it has the lowest optimal value
power systems, three standard test systems have been performed
of 798.92 ($/h) while other best results of the compared algorithms
to determine the optimal power flow with respect to a fuel-cost
can be seen as 798.9936 ($/h) by HP-SSO [33], 799,289 ($/h) by DE
objective function of generators. In the first system, WCA has
[19], and 799.111 ($/h) by BBO [22]. In addition, to evaluate the
determined the optimal solutions for the IEEE 30-bus network con-
results in detail, the improved fuel costs by percentage between
sisting of six thermal units, four tap-changing transformers, and
WCA and other compared methods are also calculated and listed
forty-one transmission branches [15,42]. It includes two sub-
in Table 1. The outstanding solution of WCA can be seen by the
cases in which the first has investigated the IEEE 30-bus network
improvement of fuel costs which are 0.01%, 0.02%, and 0.05% corre-
without PVS and the second has analyzed the economic effect of
sponding to the comparisons with HP-SSO [33], BBO [22], and DE
installing PVS in the system. For the IEEE 57-bus network [18]
[19], respectively. Moreover, the proposed method has also a sim-
and IEEE 118-bus network [41], we have just investigated the
pler implementation (or could say that faster) than most of other
OPF problem without PVS installed. The simulations have been
methods because the control parameters (Np, MIter and NNGS) of
implemented in the MATLAB environment and MATPOWER pro-
the proposed WCA are 20, 90, and 1800 whilst those of others
gram [53], on a PC with Intel Core i5-2.4 GhZ processor and 4 GB
are much higher, for example DGWO [25] with (50, 100, 5000)
RAM. All the obtained results have been compared to those of var-
and PSO-PS [17] with (100, 500, 50000) excluding only HP-SSO
ious related applications [13–41].
with (20, 30, 600). However, the optimal fuel cost of HP-SSO is
It was stated that metaheuristics could be applied widely and
poorer than that of WCA as presented in Table 1. Consequently,
successfully for optimization problems in engineering but their
we could state that WCA is more effective than all compared others
effectiveness was not very good due to existing shortcomings such
for solving the OFP problem with the IEEE 30-bus network.
as algorithm characteristic, the implementation of applications,
Similar to other methods in the meta-heuristic search algorithm
etc. [54]. In addition, the randomization has a high impact on the
family, the WCA performance relates closely to the selection of
effectiveness of applied methods [55]. Thus, in order to reach glo-
algorithm’s control parameters. Thus, to evaluate the robustness
bal optimal solutions with high quality, the determination of
of the proposed method, many experiments were conducted by
parameters was not easy and applied methods without appropriate
scanning various control variables such as Np (the population),
settings could fall into local optimum with low quality [56]. As
Tolpre (the maximum distance between rivers and the sea), Nsr
suggested in [57], main factors of applied or proposed methods
(the number of rivers), and Miter (the number of maximum itera-
should be adjusted and results should be analyzed before conclud-
tions) in their feasible ranges to determine the most appropriate
ing the real efficiency of these methods. Similar to all other meth-
parameters. It was implemented in 50 different runs and the
ods in the Meta-heuristic family, the WCA performance relates
results was analyzed as below.
closely to the selection of algorithm’s control parameters. Thus,
At first, we surveyed the searching process by various values of
in this research, many experiments were conducted with various
Np and Miter where Np is sequentially increased from 10, 20, to 30
control variables such as Np (the population), Tolpre (the maximum
and Miter is changed from 30 to 150 iterations with a step of 10 iter-
distance between rivers and the sea), Nsr (the number of rivers),
ations while the other control variables are kept constant. For
and Miter (the number of maximum iterations) to select the most
example, Nsr is set by Np/2 and Tolpre is 10e-3. As shown in
appropriate parameters for the specific OPF problem. We’ve used
Fig. 3, we could say that the searching process with Np = 30 gets
the first test case with the IEEE 30-bus network without PV sys-
the best performance while that with Np = 20 takes the second-
tems for analyzing the performance of WCA corresponding to var-
best result and Np = 10 makes the worst result. In addition, when
ious control parameters through 50 different runs and the selected
looking at the performance curves corresponding to Miter, we can
results are utilized in all remaining test cases. The following sec-
see that the best optimal values of the curve with Np = 30 do not
tions will describe the results obtained from the experiments.

Table 1
Simulation results for the IEEE 30-bus system.

Method Fuel cost ($/h) Np Miter NNGS Improved fuel cost (%)
PSO [13] 800.41 NA NA NA 0.19
PSO-PS [17] 799.8723 100 500 50,000 0.12
DE [19] 799.2891 50 500 25,000 0.05
SF-DE [20] 800.4131 30 1000 30,000 0.19
EGA [21] 799.56 60 200 12,000 0.08
BBO [22] 799.1116 50 200 10,000 0.02
DGWO [25] 800.433 50 100 5,000 0.19
DQLF [37] 799.56 50 200 10,000 0.08
MFO [41] 799.072 40 500 20,000 0.02
MSCA [32] 799.31 NA 500 NA 0.05
HP-SSO [33] 798.9936 20 30 600 0.01
WCA 798.92 20 90 1800 –

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Fig. 3. Fitness functions obtained by WCA with various setting for populations.
change according to the maximum number of iterations. Hence,
the values of Np = 30 and Miter = 60 can be selected as the most
appropriate control parameters because they make the smallest
number of new generated solution, which is 1800 but still reaching
a good performance. Similarly, the searching performance with
Np = 20 and Miter = 90 is very good while keeping the smallest num-
ber of new generated solutions among all other experimental
times. In further experiments, we found that increasing Miter or
Np makes NNGS correspondingly higher, which leads to the signif-
icant increase in the computation time but the optimal results do
not improve more. Therefore, we will choose either Np = 30 and
Miter = 60 or Np = 20 and Miter = 90 for implementing all experi-
ments from now on.
Another control parameter, Nsr, is the number of rivers flowing
into the sea. These rivers are defined for solutions, which have got
the next good fitness values after the best solution (the sea). In the
search strategy of WCA, a new river (solution) can replace the role
of the sea if its fitness value wins that of the sea [12]. Thus, Nsr is a
user parameter that has a high impact on the searching perfor-
mance. The experiment has investigated the influence of Nsr on
the searching process by varying Nsr from 2 to 10 (or Np/2) while
setting Np and Miter at 20 and 90, respectively. At each Nsr value,
the convergence characteristic of fitness function values is ana-
Fig. 4. The curves of maximum, mean, and minimum optimal values over 50 runs with Np = 20 and Miter = 90 in relation to Nsr.
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lyzed by three statistical factors: the minimum cost, maximum
cost, and mean cost over 50 successful runs. Fig. 4 depicts three
curves of the best of runs, the average of runs, and the worst of
runs obtained from 50 running times. It shows that the red curve
indicating the best of runs has very small fluctuations in relation
to various Nsr while the blue curve indicating the worst of runs
has high fluctuations in relation to various Nsr. In addition, the
average of runs seems to be quite stable with the Nsr parameter,
meaning that the performance of WCA is really robust for the opti-
mal power flow problem. Moreover, the fitness values in the mean
and worst curves are varied depending on Nsr and at the value of
Nsr = 5, all three curves including the best, mean, and worst opti-
mal values have approached the most satisfactory results. There-
fore, we could say that the searching process over 50 running
times achieves the lowest standard deviation at Nsr = 5 corre-
sponding to Np = 20 and Miter = 90.
Similarly, we continue the experiments about the influence of
Nsr on the searching process by varying Nsr from 2 to 15 (or
Np/2) while setting Np and Miter at 30 and 60, respectively. At each
value of Nsr, the WCA performance is analyzed by three statistical
factors: the minimum cost, maximum cost, and mean cost over 50
successful runs. The similarity between the convergence character-
istics of two experiments can be seen in Fig. 5 where the red curve
Bach Hoang Dinh, Thuan Thanh Nguyen, Thang Trung Nguyen et al.
Fig. 5. The curves of maximum, mean, and minimum optimal values over 50 runs with Np = 30 and Miter = 60 in relation to Nsr.
is almost unchanged while the blue curve has high fluctuations
with different values of Nsr. It shows that the best optimal results
of all three characteristic curves can be achieved at Nsr = 9. Thus,
we could say that the searching process over 50 running times
obtains the lowest standard deviation at Nsr = 9 corresponding to
Np = 30 and Miter = 60.
From the two above experiments investigating the influence of
Nsr on the searching process, we could conclude that the perfor-
mance of the OPF based WCA approach is excellent and robust
with the control variables selected in the range of Np = 20 to 30
and Nsr = 1/4 to 1/3 Np (from 5 to 10).
In the last experiment, we focused on finding the appropriate
values of another control parameter, Tolpre, which is the maximum
distance between rivers and the sea. As defined in the searching
strategy of WCA [12], a large value of Tolpre extends the search area
far from the sea while a small one makes a scanning area closed to
the sea. Therefore, the user’s setting value of Tolpre will control the
search intensity versus the location of the sea (the current best
solution in population) and it can have an impact on the possibility
of WCA to overcome the local optimum trap at each iteration. In
this experiment, we have gradually varied the value of Tolpre from
101 to 109 while setting the other control variables at Np = 20,
Fig. 6. The optimal fuel costs determined by WCA over 50 trial runs for the IEEE 30-bus network.
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Miter = 90 and Nsr = 5. The obtained results present that Tolpre in
the range of [103–106] could achieve the smaller standard devi-
ations over 50 running times.
The performance of WCA for the IEEE 30-bus network over 50
running times is described by Figs. 6–8 in detail. As shown in the
figures below, the deviation between the best and the mean opti-
mal fuel costs is not high, thus it indicates that WCA is definitely
robust for the OPF problem of the IEEE 30-bus network. The setting
result of the IEEE 30-bus network determined by WCA is presented
in Appendix in detail.
- Obtaining the best optimal solution.
- Getting a robust searching process.
- Reaching faster speed of convergence.
Similar to all algorithms in meta-heuristic family, the selection
of control parameters of WCA has a significant influence on the
searching quality for a specific problem. However, WCA involves
quite many control parameters, such as Np, Miter, Nsr, and Tolpre
during its searching procedure. Thus, applying WCA may spend
much time for surveying the feasible values of those factors to
make a good performance in practice.
Bach Hoang Dinh, Thuan Thanh Nguyen, Thang Trung Nguyen et al. Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 2839–2858

Fig. 7. The convergence characteristics of the best, the mean, and the worst run of WCA for the IEEE 30-bus network.

Fig. 8. The optimal fuel costs of the best, the mean, and the worst run of WCA for the IEEE 30-bus network. Finally, from analyzing above, we could conclude that WCA is more
effective than other meta-heuristic approaches to solve the OPF problem for the IEEE 30-bus system in terms of:

5.2. Results in the IEEE 30-bus system with PVS installed
This section presents the implementation of the proposed WCA
method for a more complicated system where the IEEE 30-bus net-
work is integrated by a renewable source as photovoltaic panels.
This renewable integrated system aims to reduce the fuel costs
of generators, increase the effectivity of the transmission network,
and contribute to the environment protection. The experiment has
been implemented to select the best location of PVS for minimizing
the fuel cost objective. It is an extension of the conventional OPF
problem where we need to determine not only the control vari-
ables for the power load flow, such as the voltage and active power
of generators, and compensator’s capacities, onload-tap changers
of transformers, etc., but also the installation position of the PV
system, so that the fuel-cost objective function could reach to a
global optimization point. The referenced data of the renewable
integrated system can be seen by [42] where only one photovoltaic
system of 2.0 MW will be installed at one of feasible positions in
the IEEE 30-bus system. Because PVS is seen as a type of power dis-
tributed sources, it should be installed at the most benefitable
places in the network, i.e. high demand loads. Hence, we could
place this PVS of 2.0 MW at one of appropriate buses, such as 3,
7, 8, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 29, and 30. Applying WCA for
the IEEE 30-bus renewable integrated system, the best location
to install PVS is at Bus 30 because it makes the best optimal value
among all possible buses for the fuel-cost objective. Fig. 9 below
shows the structure of the IEEE 30-bus system and the PVS position
at Bus 30.
To implement the OPF calculation for the IEEE 30-bus system
with PVS, we chose the control parameters of WCA similar to the
best setting in Section 5.1, i.e. Np = 20, Miter = 90, Nsr = 5, and
Tolpre = 103. The obtained results over 50 runs are analyzed and
indicated as the best, the mean, and the worst optimal fitness val-
ues (or maximum, average, and maximum fuel costs). The compar-
ison between two cases, the IEEE 30-bus system with and without
PVS installed, is described in Fig. 10. It indicates that WCA can
improve the fuel cost by 0.93% thanks to the installation of PVS.
Moreover, the performance of WCA is also compared to that of

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Fig. 9. The best location of PVS for the IEEE 30-bus system using WCA.

Fig. 10. The fuel comparison obtained by WCA for the case with and without PVS installed in the IEEE 30-bus system.

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Fig. 11. The comparison of fuel cost obtained by OCOA, MCOA, and WCA for the case with PVS installed in the IEEE 30-bus system.

OCOA and MCOA in [42] as shown in Fig. 11. It presents that WCA
is superior to both OCOA and MCOA because the best, mean, and
worst optimal values of WCA at (791.44, 792.31, 796.69) are much
better than those of OCOA and MCOA at (795.98, 806.21, 853.84)
and (791.92, 796.48, 885.74), respectively. Especially, the optimal
solution obtained by WCA is more stable than that by OCOA and
MCOA because the deviation between the best and the worst opti-
mal values of WCA as well as its standard deviation are the small-
est value among the compared approaches.
5.3. Results in the IEEE 57-bus system
This section presents the implementation of WCA for the IEEE
57-bus system. The comparison between WCA and other similar
algorithms is analyzed based on the optimal fuel costs. The control
parameters of WCA in the experiments are fixed as follows:
Np = 20, Miter = 500, Nsr = 5 and Tolpre = 103. As shown in Table 2,
WCA has won the second-best optimal fuel cost among the results
of many other Meta-heuristic algorithms. It has archived a domi-
nant result with the optimal fuel cost of 41,644.33 ($/h) while
the other algorithms have obtained the optimal results from
42,109.72 ($/h) by PSO [15] to 41,665.54 ($/h) by HP-SSO [33]
except a very slightly better result of 41,638.38 ($/h) by MTLBO
[35]. However, we can say that the searching process of WCA is
much faster than that of MTLBO in the same implementation task
because its NNGS is just 10,000 while NNGS of MTLBO is up to
20,000. Furthermore, we can see the superiority of WCA by analyz-
ing the comparison results in percentage of improvement level as
followings. The improved fuel cost between WCA and other
meta-heuristic algorithms is from 0.01% to 1.12% from the next
best result by HP-SSO [33] to the worst compared result by PSO
[15] in Table 2. The only minus improved fuel cost between WCA
and MTLBO [35] is just about 0.01% that is very tiny difference.
Similar to the previous experiments, many different running
times have been conducted for the test case of the IEEE 57-bus sys-
tem. Fig. 12 presents the optimal fuel costs of many independent
runs where we can see a surprisingly high stability of WCA over
50 successful runs. Nearly all runs could reach high quality optimal
results and only one run is taken a surge in the optimal result.
Fig. 13 and Fig. 14 respectively present the convergence character-
istic curves of the best, mean, and worst runs as well as the optimal
values of the best, mean, and worst runs. We can see that the devi-
ation between the best and the average optimal fuel costs is very
small. Moreover, the convergence characteristics of the best and
the mean over 50 trial runs are very closed together and they both
converge very fast to the optimal values in about 1/3 Miter recorded
by the mean characteristic curve and even faster by the best char-
acteristic curve with just 1/5 Miter. Therefore, WCA is really more
effective than other similar meta-heuristic algorithms for the IEEE
57-bus system because it has achieved the better stabilization,
high quality of optimal solutions and faster convergence speed. It
reflects the robustness and effectiveness of the WCA performance.
5.4. Results in the IEEE 118-bus system
In this test case, we have applied the proposed WCA for the IEEE
118-bus system [33]. The control parameters of WCA are set as
Np = 30, Miter = 700, Nsr = 9, Tolpre = 10–3. and NNGS = 21,000. This

Table 2
Simulation results in the IEEE 57-bus network.

Method Fuel cost ($/h) Np Miter NNGS Improved fuel cost (%)
EADPSO [14] 41,697.54 50 150 7500 0.13
PSO [15] 42,109.72 25 200 5000 1.12
IPSO [15] 41,688.50 25 200 5000 0.11
hC-DEEPSO [18] 41,691.45 60 – 5000 0.11
DEEPSO [18] 41,697.58 60 – 5000 0.13
DA-PSO [34] 41,674.62 100 100 10,000 0.07
SF-DE [20] 41,667.82 NA NA 42 000 0.06
ARCBBO [23] 41,686 100 500 50,000 0.10
MTLBO [35] 41,638.38 100 200 20,000 0.01
MOMICA [36] 41,738.44 220 500 110,000 0.23
ABC [39] 41,693.96 70 200 14,000 0.12
IBA [30] 416,730 20 200 4000 0.07
TSA [31] 41,685.07 10 1000 10,000 0.10
HP-SSO [33] 41,665.54 30 50 1700 0.05
WCA 41,644.33 20 500 10,000 –

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Fig. 12. Fitness function results obtained by WCA over 50 independent trial runs for the IEEE 57-bus system.

Fig. 13. The curves of the best, mean, and worst runs of WCA for the IEEE 57-bus system.

Fig. 14. The best, mean, and worst optimal values of WCA for the IEEE 57-bus system.
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Table 3
The performance of compared methods for the IEEE 118-bus system.

Method Fuel cost ($/h) Np Miter NNGS Improvement level (%)

IPSO [15] 139,604.13 40 250 10,000 7.1
GPU_PSO [16] 129,627.03 – – – 0.554
hC-DEEPSO [16] 135050.21 – – – 3.606
SP-DE [20] 135055.7 – – – 3.61
IKHA [24] 131,427.26 – – – 0.826
MINLP [38] 130,114.43 – – – 0.181
COA [26] 133,110.43 – – – 2.118
ICBO [27] 135,121.57 90 2500 225,000 3.66
EACO [40] 138757.7521 – – – 6.450
MSA [28] 129,640.72 – – 0.544
HP-SSO [33] 129,879.45 – – ~ 9000 0.361
WCA 130,350.1375 30 700 21,000

is a very complex system and WCA can only achieve the optimal
value of 130,350.13 ($/h) ranked on the fifth position as listed in
Table 3. It is poorer than MSA with the optimal value of
129,640.72 ($/h) [28], GPU_PSO with 129,627.03 ($/h) [16], MINLP
with 130,114.43 ($/h) [38], and HP-SSO with 129,879.45 ($/h) [33].
However, we are unable to compare the computation burden as
well as the time efficiency among listed algorithms because other
researches didn’t mention the control variables in their studies.
Many trial runs have been also implemented for the IEEE 118-
bus system to evaluate the robustness of the proposed WCA
approach. Figs. 15, 16 and 17 show the results of 50 running times
and we can see the fluctuation in the optimal values among differ-
ent runs. Comparing Fig. 15 and Fig. 12 of the IEEE 57-bus system,
we can see a poorer stabilization in optimal fuel results. The con-
vergence characteristic curves as well as optimal values of the best,
mean and worst runs over 50 trial runs are presented in Figs. 16
and 17, respectively. It shows a large deviation among different
running times due to a significant difference between the best
and mean optimal results.
According to analyzing the experiment results, we can say that
for complex systems, like the IEEE 118-bus system, the perfor-
mance of the OPF based WCA approach seems not to be the best
among compared algorithms. The ineffective results of WCA maybe
come from the complexity of searching strategy and the difficulty
in choosing the appropriate control parameters.
In general, the searching strategy of WCA bases on the random-
ization walks similar to other meta-heuristic algorithms. Thus, if
the randomization is not effectively driven, it will increase the
implementation time in searching process. The effectiveness of
the randomizations condition depends on the appropriate selec-
tion of control variables. WCA involves 4 control parameters such
as Np, Miter, Nsr, and Tolpre. Moreover, WCA has a complex searching
strategy which includes five steps of generating new solutions for
three groups of solutions, i.e., the sea, rivers, and streams. There-
fore, WCA is effective in avoiding the possibility of trapping at local
optimal points and obtains the promising results such as:
- Obtaining high-quality optimal solutions
- Having good robustness in searching process
- Taking small calculation burden.
However, for solving OPF problem of the three IEEE standard
systems, especially in a large-scale system like the IEEE 118-bus
system, we have to meet several difficulties in driving the search
process effectively. As discussed before, WCA has four control
parameters including the population Np, the number of streams
Nsr, the maximum distance between rivers and the sea Tolpre, and
the maximum iterations Miter. Hence, it is not easy to select the
appropriate parameters. In fact, during the implementation for
the IEEE 30-bus system, we surveyed various values in two couples
of control variables, such as (Np, Miter) and (Nsr, and Tolpre) where
each of elements in one couple is sequentially varied while the
other couple of control variables is kept constant to find the most
appropriate setting. Then, we applied this setting of the control
parameters for all study cases of the considered system. Obtained
results show that in four test cases, two for the IEEE 30-bus system
(with and without PVS) and another for the IEEE 57-bus system
have won the best performance among the compared algorithms,

Fig. 15. Fitness function results obtained by WCA over 50 independent trial runs for IEEE 118-bus system.

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Fig. 16. The curves of the best, mean, and worst runs of WCA for the IEEE 118-bus system.

Fig. 17. The best, mean, and worst optimal values of WCA for the IEEE 118-bus system.

but the other for the IEEE 118-bus system hasn’t reached the per- Appendix A
formance domination as expected. Thus, it seems that the appro-
priate control parameters applying for small power systems may See Tables A1–A4.
not be well-suited for large scale power systems.

6. Conclusion
Table A1
In this paper, WCA approach has been developed to solve the Control variables for the IEEE 30-bus system without PVS.
OPF problem. Simulation results show that WCA is superior to
Variable Value Variable Value
the other algorithms with regard to the rapid convergence to the
high-quality global optimum and good robustness. In applications PG1 176.8685 Qc2 4.9937
PG2 49.0242 Qc3 4.4864
for the IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 57-bus systems, WCA has won the
PG5 21.2541 Qc4 4.9615
best minimal value among other Meta-heuristic algorithms as PG8 21.1595 Qc5 5.0000
mentioned in the literature. For a more complicated structure like PG11 11.6581 Qc6 5.0000
the IEEE 118-bus system, WCA has also achieved the satisfactory PG13 12.0212 Qc7 2.9013
optimal results even though not easy to deal with the complexity VG1 1.1000 Qc8 4.9987
VG2 1.0882 Qc9 2.3355
of the OPF problem and many attempts needed. Many experiments VG5 1.0626 T11 1.0669
have been conducted to evaluate the quality and robustness of VG8 1.0700 T12 0.9000
WCA. The obtained results confirm that WCA is a potential method VG11 1.1000 T15 0.9883
to determine the accurate and feasible OPF solutions for various VG13 1.0999 T36 0.9674
Qc1 5.0000
power systems effectively.
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Table A2
Control variables for the IEEE 30-bus network with 2.0-MW PVS.

Variable MWCA Variable MWCA

PG1 176.0451 Qc2 5.0000
PG2 48.3803 Qc3 4.9988
PG5 21.3166 Qc4 4.9956
PG8 20.4557 Qc5 5.0000
PG11 11.6200 Qc6 5.0000
PG13 12.0000 Qc7 2.6309
VG1 1.1000 Qc8 4.9464
VG2 1.0877 Qc9 2.4299
VG5 1.0616 T11 1.0028
VG8 1.0694 T12 0.9423
VG11 1.1000 T15 0.9808
VG13 1.1000 T36 0.9652
Qc1 4.6384 LPV 30

Table A3
Control variables for the IEEE 57-bus network.

Variable Value Variable Value

PG1 100 T2 0.9
PG2 44.5542 T3 1.1
PG3 73.7818 T4 1.0549
PG6 460.1939 T5 0.9
PG8 86.9939 T6 1.0988
PG9 358.3048 T7 1.0225
PG12 1.1 T8 0.9815
VG1 1.0983 T9 0.9422
VG2 1.0896 T10 0.993
VG3 1.0958 T11 0.97
VG8 1.0999 T12 0.9661
VG9 1.0768 T13 0.9707
VG12 1.0815 T14 0.9435
Qc1 0 T15 0.9592
Qc2 5.8987 T16 0.9892
Qc3 6.2996 T17 1.0199
T1 100

Table A4
Control variables for the IEEE 118-bus network.

Var. Value Var. Value Var. Value Var. Value Var. Value
PG1 4.8889 PG62 358.1792 PG116 0 VG61 1.0167 VG112 1.0622
PG4 86.0208 PG65 357.711 VG1 1.0471 VG62 1.019 VG113 1.0516
PG6 0 PG66 479.7685 VG4 1.0916 VG65 1.0498 VG116 1.0249
PG8 0.5027 PG70 5.6581 VG6 1.0713 VG66 1.0454 Qc5 0.028
PG10 387.9562 PG72 43.5088 VG8 1.0711 VG69 1.0534 Qc34 7.0077
PG12 83.8674 PG73 0 VG10 1.1 VG70 1.0138 Qc37 19.4835
PG15 0 PG74 26.9538 VG12 1.0677 VG72 1.0261 Qc44 9.6793
PG18 0 PG76 0 VG15 1.03 VG73 1.0085 Qc45 10
PG19 0 PG77 0.5574 VG18 1.0322 VG74 0.9988 Qc46 10
PG24 0 PG80 428.2211 VG19 1.0204 VG76 0.9832 Qc48 6.037
PG25 193.0679 PG85 0 VG24 1.0215 VG77 1.0269 Qc74 11.5982
PG26 277.1787 PG87 0.309 VG25 1.04 VG80 1.042 Qc79 19.5097
PG27 0.0014 PG89 472.0883 VG26 0.95 VG85 1.0308 Qc82 17.4622
PG31 7.2879 PG90 0 VG27 1.0401 VG87 1.0307 Qc83 0.1641
PG32 0 PG91 0 VG31 1.0303 VG89 1.0511 Qc105 0
PG34 0 PG92 0.1887 VG32 1.0294 VG90 1.0407 Qc107 2.9339
PG36 0 PG99 0 VG34 1.0115 VG91 1.0505 Qc110 0
PG40 61.1576 PG100 231.826 VG36 1.0086 VG92 1.0378 T8 0.9962
PG42 0 PG103 40.6469 VG40 0.9973 VG99 1.032 T32 0.9649
PG46 19.5188 PG104 0.0077 VG42 0.9963 VG100 1.0373 T36 0.9904
PG49 191.9692 PG105 14.2208 VG46 0.9502 VG103 1.0312 T51 1.0049
PG54 50.2661 PG107 0 VG49 1.0262 VG104 1.0166 T93 1.018
PG55 29.2536 PG110 28.6456 VG54 1.0335 VG105 1.0161 T95 1.1
PG56 53.4644 PG111 32.5314 VG55 1.0305 VG107 1.0116 T102 0.9933
PG59 150.0197 PG112 38.6262 VG56 1.0307 VG110 1.0576 T107 0.9
PG61 148.9823 PG113 26.1845 VG59 1.0331 VG111 1.0812 T127 1.0094

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[51] Dolapci IT, Yildrim A. Some exact solutions to the generalized Korteweg-deVries Thang Trung Nguyen received his M.Sc. and Ph.D
equation and the system of shallow water wave equations. Nonlinear Analysis: degree in electrical engineering from Ho Chi Minh City
Model Control (SCI) 2013;18:27–36. doi: https://doi.org/10.15388/NA.18.1.14029. University of Technology (HCMUT), in 2010 and 2018
[52] Yue WX, Koçak H, Zhang DH, Yıldırım A. A second attempt to establish an respectively, Vietnam. Currently, he is a research and
analytical expression to steam-water dipole orientation parameter using the head of power system optimization research group at
boubaker polynomials expansion scheme. J Struct Chem 2011;52(1):106–10. Faculty Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Ton Duc
doi: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0022476611010148. Thang university. He has published over sixty papers
[53] Ray D. Zimmerman Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez. MATPOWER User’s Manual including higher than thirty ISI papers. His research
Version 7.0. fields are power system optimization, optimization
[54] Deng W, Xu J, Zhao H. An improved ant colony optimization algorithm based
algorithms, and renewable energies.
on hybrid strategies for scheduling problem. IEEE Access 2019;7:20281–92.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2897580.
[55] Zhao H, Zheng J, Deng W, Song Y. Semi-supervised broad learning system
based on manifold regularization and broad network. IEEE Trans Circuits
Systems I: Regular Papers 2020;67(3):983–94. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/
TCSI.2019.2959886.
[56] Deng W, Liu H, Xu J, Zhao H, Song Y. An improved quantum-inspired Thai Dinh Pham received B. Eng from HCMC University
differential evolution algorithm for deep belief network. IEEE Trans Instrum of Technology and Education, Ho Chi Minh City 700000,
Meas 2020:1–8. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/TIM.2020.2983233. Vietnam in 2014 and M.Sc. from National Chung Cheng
[57] Deng W, Zhao H. An effective improved co-evolution ant colony optimization University, Chiayi 62102, Taiwan, R.O.C in 2017. All
algorithm with multi-strategies and its application. Inter J Bio-Inspired Comp degrees are in Electrical Engineering. Currently, he is
2020;16(3):158–70. doi: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBIC.2020.111267. working as a research collaborator in Institute of
Research and Development, Duy Tan University, Danang
550000, Vietnam. His favorite research areas include
Bach H. Dinh received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical power quality, power system optimization and renew-
Engineering from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, able energies.
United Kingdom in 2009. He received his B.Eng and M.
Eng in Electrical Engineering from Vietnam National
University, Hochiminh City in 1995 and 1999, respec-
tively. He is currently the head of Electrical Engineering
Department at Ton Duc Thang University Vietnam. Prior
to joining the faculty, he was a researcher in Power
System Automation and Protection at Electrical Engi-
neering Research and Design Office, Polytechnic
University, Hochiminh City, and a Project Manager in
Technical and Commercial Department at Schneider
Electric Vietnam. His research interests are intelligent and optimal control, com-
puter vision, robotics, power electronics, SCADA and industrial communication
networks. He is a member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society.

Thuan Thanh Nguyen is currently Ph.D in Industrial

University of Ho Chi Minh City, Faculty of Electrical
Engineering Technology. He received B.Eng., M.Eng. and
Ph.D degeree in Electrical Engineering from Ho Chi Minh
City University of Technology and Education, Viet Nam
in 2008, 2012 and 2018 respectively. His interests are
applications of metaheuristic algorithms in power sys-
tem optimization, power system operation and control
and renewable energy.

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