Combined Analytic Hierarchical Process-Differential Evolution Approach for Optimal Reactive Power Planning

This paper presents an approach to solve the reactive power planning problem using the analytical hierarchical process and the differential evolution algorithm. The objective of the reactive power planning problem is to properly locate and size reactive power sources in order to maintain a secure voltage profile across the system, while other operational constraints are satisfied simultaneously. Three parallel indices (the benefit-to-cost ratio, the sensitivity method and the voltage security margin method) were used to estimate the optimal location of new reactive power sources over the system. The allocation of new reactive power sources (sizing problem) was formulated as a nonlinear, multiobjective, mixed-integer optimization problem, which is solved using a novel evolutionary computation technique: the differential evolution algorithm. The proposed approach has been tested using a modified version of the IEEE 30-bus test system with satisfactory results