Marginal price based shunt capacitor operation in a day ahead reactive power management by Cuckoo Search algorithm

Optimal reactive power management is very important due to its ability of maintaining the voltage level and system security of a power system. An accurate and feasible method for the pricing of reactive power is essential for a competitive market scenario. In this paper a method for the pricing of reactive power is formulated considering the generation from synchronous generators and shunt capacitors present in the system. Minimization of total reactive power generation cost of the system is considered to be the objective function of the problem formulated in this paper. The pricing method for generated reactive power from shunt capacitors is based on the locational marginal price (LMP) of the bus. The output of the shunt capacitors are regulated depending on their LMP throughout the day. The method is implemented on a standard IEEE 30 bus test system. Cuckoo Search algorithm is used for the optimization process. The total cost of reactive power generation is found to be $2308.36 for a typical day having variable loads throughout the 24 hour of operation.