Reactive power optimization based on cooperative coevolution particle swarm optimization

This paper presents a new cooperative co-evolution particle swarm optimization (CCPSO) algorithm for reactive power optimization in power systems. In CCPSO algorithm, searching space is partitioned by splitting the solution vectors into smaller vectors; each of these smaller search spaces is then searched by a separate PSO. The fitness function is evaluated by combining solutions found by each of the PSOs representing the smaller subspaces. By employing the cooperative behavior of sub-swarms, CCPSO significantly improves optimization performance of original PSO. The proposed approach has been examined and tested with promising numerical results of reactive power optimization in IEEE 30-bus system and a practical power system.