Optimal design of Power System Stabilizer in a multi-machine system using evolutionary computing, a comparative study

When the power system subjected to disturbances, stability is a challenging task. The Power System Stabilizer plays an important role to reduce the low frequency oscillation (LFO) and enhance the performance. This is because, the PSS is low cost, flexible and easy to implement. In this work the problem is designed as a single objective optimization technique to tune the PSS parameters with Eigenvalue analysis. Here the Invasive Weed Optimization algorithm which is found suitable for these types of problems is selected as a tool to find optimal solutions. Simulations are executed on a 4-machine power system for different operating conditions such as heavy load, light load and capacitive load. The results are obtained under different fault conditions with Invasive Weed optimization technique and compared the same with PSO. At last it is observed that the IWO technique performs better in damping overshoot and settling time.