Adaptive Particle Swarm Optimization Approach for Optimal Reactive Power Planning

This paper presents an Adaptive Particle Swarm Optimization (APSO) approach for solving the Optimal Reactive Power Planning (ORPP) problem. Generator bus voltage magnitudes, transformer tap settings and reactive power generation of capacitor bank are taken as the control variables. While solving the ORPP problem using adaptive particle swarm optimization, the voltage magnitudes are taken as continuous variables, whereas the transformer tap setting and the reactive power generation of capacitor are taken as discrete variables. The proposed approach has been applied to find the optimal reactive power control variables in IEEE 30-bus system and is found to be more effective than the conventional methods and the evolutionary programming.