Reactive power optimization based on genetic algorithm with new technique of mutation

The problem of optimal reactive power is a non-linear optimization problem with several constraints. The objective of the optimization problem is to minimize the active power losses maintaining acceptable voltage profiles. In this paper the optimization of reactive power is solved using a genetic algorithm with a new mutation strategy. The mutation process consists in choosing random genes from random chromosomes to apply specific changes. This technique has proven better results when compared with previous work using different techniques of optimization for the reactive power problem. The proposed algorithm can easily work with both continuous and discrete control variables because it uses the original parameters of the control variables (generator bus voltages, transformer tap ratio and capacitor reactive powers) without coding it. The proposed algorithm has been applied and tested on IEEE 6 bus and IEEE 14 bus systems.