A PSO Method With Nonlinear Time-Varying Evolution for Optimal Design of Harmonic Filters

A particle swarm optimization method with nonlinear time-varying evolution (PSO-NTVE) is employed in the planning of large-scale passive harmonic filters for a multibus system under abundant harmonic current sources. The objective is to minimize the cost of the filter, the filters loss, the total harmonic distortion of currents and voltages at each bus simultaneously. In the PSO-NTVE method, parameters are determined by using matrix experiments with an orthogonal array, in which a minimal number of experiments would have an effect that approximates the full factorial experiments. To compare the performance of the proposed PSO-NTVE method with existing ones, five well-known benchmarks are used and the results reveal its superiority over the others. This PSO-NTVE method is then applied to design optimal harmonic filters in a steel plant, where both ac and dc arc furnaces are used and a static var compensator (SVC) is installed. From the results of the illustrative examples, the feasibility of the PSO-NTVE to design an optimal passive harmonic filter of a multibus system is verified.