Optimal reactive power dispatch using particle swarm optimization in deregulated environment

This paper presents an approach based on particle swarm optimization method to dispatch reactive power optimally in the power system. In deregulated power system environment,reactive power dispatch problem has immense significance for economical operation and reliability of the system as it is strongly related to network loss and system voltage profile. In this paper, a multi objective optimization problem of reactive power dispatch is addressed, where objective functions to be minimized consist of minimisation of active power losses, minimum deviation in load bus voltages,reactive power generations regulation and total power flow of transmission lines with in limits. Conventional PSO variant based approach is used to adjust optimally various control variables viz. the generator bus voltages, the tap position of transformers and the amount of reactive power shunt compensation for RPD problem. Proposed approach is implimented on the modified IEEE-39 bus test system with multiple objective functions suceessfully. Contribution of optimal dispatch of reactive power to the enhancement of available transfer capability is also verified.