See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/259044928

Voltage Stability Constrained Optimal Power Flow Using Non-dominated

Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA II)

Conference Paper · December 2012

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-35380-2_93

CITATIONS READS

4 202

4 authors, including:

Nithya Chinnaiyan Preetha Roselyn

SRM Institute of Science and Technology SRM Institute of Science and Technology
12 PUBLICATIONS   12 CITATIONS    27 PUBLICATIONS   55 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

D. Devaraj
Kalasalingam University
290 PUBLICATIONS   3,528 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Energy Saving through IoT Based Building Automation and Non-linear Predictive Controller View project

Sequestration of CO2 Emission through Critical Analysis of End Use Energy Efficiency in Heterogeneous Mixture of Process Industries View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Preetha Roselyn on 20 May 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Voltage Stability Constrained Optimal Power Flow Using
Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA II)

C. Nithya1, J. Preetha Roselyn1, D. Devaraj2, and Subhransu Sekhar Dash3

1
SRM University,Kattankulathur-603203
{nith.satish,preetha.roselyn}@gmail.com
2
Kalasalingam University, Srivilliputhur-626190
deva230@yahoo.com
3
SRM University,Kattankulathur-603203
munu_dash_2k@yahoo.com

Abstract. Voltage stability has become an important issue in planning and

operation of many power systems. Contingencies such as unexpected line
outages in a stressed system may often result in voltage instability, which may
lead to voltage collapse. This paper presents evolutionary algorithm techniques
like Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II
(NSGA II) approach for solving the Voltage Stability Constrained Optimal
Power Flow (VSC-OPF). Base-case generator power output, voltage magnitude
of generator buses are taken as the control variables. Maximum L-index of load
buses is used to specify the voltage stability level of the system. An improved
GA which permits the control variables to be represented in their natural form is
proposed to solve the Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem and NSGA II is
proposed to solve the VSC-OPF optimization problem. For effective genetic
operation, crossover and mutation operators which can directly operate on
floating point numbers and integers are used. The proposed approach has been
evaluated on the IEEE 30-bus test system. Simulation results show the
effectiveness of the proposed NSGA II approach than Multi-Objective Genetic
Algorithm (MOGA) for improving the voltage security of the system.

1 Introduction

O PTIMAL Power Flow (OPF) [1] is a nonlinear programming problem, and is used
to determine optimal outputs of generators and bus voltage in power system,
with an objective to minimize total production cost, while the system is operating
within its security limit. Since OPF was introduced in 1968, several methods have
been employed to solve this problem, e.g. Gradient base [9], Linear programming
method [3] and Interior point method [12]. However all of these methods suffer from
three main problems. Firstly, they may not be able to provide optimal solution and
usually getting stuck at local optima [17]. Secondly, all these methods are based on
assumption of continuity and differentiability of objective function which is not
actually allowed in a practical system. Finally, all these methods cannot be applied
with discrete variables, which are transformer taps. It seems that GA is an appropriate

B.K. Panigrahi et al. (Eds.): SEMCCO 2012, LNCS 7677, pp. 793–801, 2012.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
794 C. Nithya et al.

method to solve this problem, which eliminates the above drawbacks [24, 22, and 11].
GA, invented by Holland in the early 1970s, is a stochastic global search method that
mimics the metaphor of natural biological evaluation.
Genetic Algorithms (GA) [8] operates on a population of candidate solutions
encoded to finite bit string called chromosome. In order to obtain optimality, each
chromosome exchanges the information using operators borrowed from natural
genetic to produce the better solution.
In the recent past, several voltage instability incidents have been reported all over
the world. A system enters a state of voltage instability when a disturbance causes a
progressive and uncontrollable decline in voltage. This change in voltage is so rapid
that voltage control devices may not take corrective actions rapidly enough to prevent
cascading outages. Voltage instability is typically associated with the presence of
reactive power demands of loads not being met because of limitations on the
production and transmission of reactive powers. Contingencies such as unexpected
line outages in a stressed system may often result in voltage instability, which may
lead to voltage collapse.
This problem can only be exacerbated by the application of open-market principles
to the operation of power systems, as stability margins will be reduced even further to
respond to market pressures, which demands greater attention on reduced operating
costs. This has necessitated the importance of incorporating the voltage stability limit
in the power system operation and planning stage. Canizares [5] have proposed two
different formulations to include the voltage stability in the OPF formulation. In the
first approach, the problem was formulated as a single-objective optimization problem
with cost minimization [7].In the second approach, called the voltage stability
constraint OPF method, the problem was formulated as a multi-objective optimization
problem with cost minimization as the objective function and the voltage stability
limit as the second objective function . In the present paper, the voltage stability
indicator is incorporated in the OPF formulation through the L-index value.
In this paper three different cases are considered. In the first case base case OPF as
a single objective optimization problem is solved using GA [7] . in the second case
VSC-OPF problem is formulated in MOGA with minimization of fuel cost and L-
index value. In the third case VSC-OPF problem is considered as a multi-objective
problem and is solved using the NSGA II approach in an IEEE 30 bus system. NSGA
[19] is a popular non-domination based genetic algorithm for multi-objective
optimization. It is a very effective algorithm but has been generally criticized for its
computational complexity, lack of elitism and for choosing the optimal parameter
value for sharing parameter share. A modified version, NSGA- II [14] was
developed, which has a better sorting algorithm, incorporates elitism and no sharing
parameter needs to be chosen a priori.

2 Voltage Stability Index

The voltage stability analysis involves determination of an index known as voltage
collapse proximity indicator. This index is an approximate measure of the closeness
of the system to voltage collapse. There are various methods of determining the
 Voltage Stability Constrained Optimal Power Flow 795

voltage collapse proximity indicator. One such method is the L-index method
proposed in Kessel and Glavitsch (1986) [16]. It is based on load flow analysis. Its
value ranges from 0 (no load condition) to 1 (voltage collapse). The bus with the
highest L-index value will be the most vulnerable bus in the system. The L-index has
the advantage of indicating voltage instability proximity of the current operating point
without calculation of the information about the maximum loading point.

3 Problem Formulation
List of symbols

N Number of total buses

NG Number of generator buses
NL Number of load buses
Nl Number of transmission lines
Pi,Qi Real and reactive power injected at bus i.
Gij, Bij Mutual conductance and susceptance between bus i and bus j
Gii,Bii Self-conductance and susceptance of bus i
| | Voltage magnitude at bus i.
Pgi,Qgi Real and reactive power generation at bus.
In general, the OPF problem is formulated as an optimisation problem in which a
specific objective function is minimised while satisfying a number of equality and
inequality constraints. The objectives of the OPF problem considered here are
minimisation of fuel cost in the normal state and the minimisation of the voltage
max
stability index L in the emergency state. Power flow equations are the equality
constraints of the problem, while the inequality constraints include the limits on real
and reactive power generation and bus voltage magnitude as follows.

∑ 1

Where NG is the number of generation including the slack bus. Pgi is the generated
active power at bus i. ai, bi and ci are the unit costs curve for ithgenerator.
Subject to:
• Load flow constraints

∑ cos sin 0
(2)
∑ sin cos 0
796 C. Nithya et al.

• Generator real power generation limit

Pgimin ≤ Pgi ≤Pgimax, i=1.......,NG (3)

• Generator reactive power generation limit

Qgimin ≤ Qgi ≤ Qgimax, i=1.......,NG (4)

• Voltage constraint
Vimin ≤ Vi ≤ Vimax, i=1……NG (5)

• Transmission line flow

Sl < Slmax l ∈ Nl (6)

The equality constraints given by the above equations are satisfied by running the
power flow program. The active power generation (Pgi) (except the generator at the
slack bus) and generator terminal bus voltages (Vgi) are the optimization variables and
they are self-restricted by the optimization algorithm.

4 Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA II)

NSGA introduced by Srinivas and Deb [20], implements the idea of a selection method based
on classes of dominance of all solutions. This algorithm identifies non-dominated
solutions in the population, at each generation, to form non-dominated fronts, based
on the concept of non-dominance of Pareto. After this, the usual selection, crossover,
and mutation operators are performed.

5 Simulation Results
The proposed NSGA II approach has been applied to solve the VSC-OPF problem in
an IEEE 30-bus test system. The system has six generator buses, 24 load buses and 41
transmission lines .The generator cost coefficients and the transmission line
parameters are taken from Alsac and Scott (1974) [1]. Three different cases were
considered for simulation, one without considering the voltage stability i.e, base case
OPF using GA, the next one to solve the VSC-OPF problem using MOGA and the
third one to solve VSC-OPF problem using NSGA II .These simulations were
implemented using the MATLAB program. The results of these simulations are
presented below.

5.1 Case (i): OPF with Cost Minimization Objective Using GA

In this case, the GA-based algorithm was applied to identify the optimal control
variables of the system under base-load condition, with cost minimisation objective
 Voltage Stability Constrained Optimal Power Flow 797

and without considering the voltage stability of the system. The optimal values of the
control variables along with the minimum fuel cost obtained are given in Table 1.
Corresponding to this control variable setting, it was found that there are no limit
violations in any of the state variables. The minimum cost solution obtained by the
proposed approach and the minimum cost reported in the literature are presented in
Table 2. From this table it is found that the minimum cost obtained by the proposed
method is less than the values reported in many papers. Figure 1 shows the graphical
representation of selecting the fitness value.

Table 1. Base Case OPF

Control Variables Variable Setting

P1(MW) 177.3771
P2(MW) 48.4817
P5(MW) 21.3846
P8(MW) 21.7854
P11(MW) 21.3842
P13(MW) 12.3842
V1(pu) 1.043
V2(pu) 1.06
V5(pu) 1.043
V8(pu) 1.01
V11(pu) 1.072
V13(pu) 1.071
Cost($/hr) 801.9697
Loss(MW) 9.444

Fig. 1. Base case OPF using GA

798 C. Nithya et al.

Table 2. Comparison of fuel cost

Method Minimum Cost($/hr)

Gradient approach [1] 802.43
Refined GA [21] 804.019
Hybrid evolutionary programming [25] 802.62

Evolutionary programming [23] 802.40

Proposed Method 801.9697

5.2 Case (iii): VSC-OPF Using NSGA II

The voltage stability index (L-index) is included as the second objective function of
the VSC-OPF problem along with the base fuel cost. The NSGA II based algorithm
was applied to solve this VSC-OPF problem. The optimal control variable setting
obtained in this case is presented in Table 3 along with the L-index value. Figure 2
shows the pareto optimal front of generation cost and L-index .The solution is a set of
non-dominated solutions. The comparison of the results obtained in multi-objective
GA and NSGA II is shown in Table 4. From this table it is clear that the performance
of NSGA II is better than MOGA in VSC-OPF problem.

Table 3. Results of VSC-OPF using NSGA II

Control Variables Variable Setting

P1(MW) 170.5467
P2(MW) 50.6320
P5(MW) 22.3488
P8(MW) 20.3435
P11(MW) 14.0137
P13(MW) 16.0340
V1(pu) 1.0000
V2(pu) 0.9999
V5(pu) 1.0000
V8(pu) 1.0000
V11(pu) 1.0028
V13(pu) 1.0000
Cost($/hr) 808.1248
Lmax 0.1104
 Voltage Stability Constrained Optimal Power Flow 799

Contingency analysis was conducted on the system by simulating the single line
outage. In each case the maximum L-index value was evaluated. From the
contingency analysis it was found that line outage 28-27 is the most severe one from
the voltage security point of view during this contingency state. Table 5 gives the fuel
cost, Lmax and minimum voltage value of the contingency constrained VSC-OPF
using NSGA II. This reduction in Lmax is obtained at the expense of increased fuel
cost. Figure 3 shows the pareto optimal front of contingency constrained VSC-OPF.

0.112

0.1115

0.111

0.1105

0.11
L-Index

0.1095

0.109

0.1085

0.108

0.1075

0.107
800 810 820 830 840 850 860 870 880
Cost($/hr)

Fig. 2. Pareto optimal front for generation cost and L-index

Table 4. Comparison of results obtained in multi-objective GA and NSGA II

Method MOGA NSGA II

Cost($/hr) 802.5989 802.128

Lmax 0.1904 0.1106

Table 5. Contingency constrained VSC-OPF using NSGA II Results

Cost ($/hr) 818.0289

Lmax 0.2951

Vmin (pu) 0.9779

800 C. Nithya et al.

0.298

0.297

0.296

0.295

0.294
L-Index

0.293

0.292

0.291

0.29

0.289

0.288
810 820 830 840 850 860 870 880 890
Cost($/hr)

Fig. 3. Pareto optimal front of contingency constrained VSC-OPF

6 Conclusion
In this paper, the various aspects of single–objective optimal power flow and multi-
objective voltage stability constrained optimal power flow are studied. An efficient
and diversified approach using NSGA II algorithm is identified to solve the above
multi-objective optimisation problems. Several case studies have been employed
separately for single and multi-objective optimization problem. Firstly, the results are
obtained for single objective OPF and contingency constrained VSC-OPF using
genetic algorithm for the optimisation of Fuel cost which are then compared with the
optimal power flow results of other papers. The multi-objective VSC-OPF problem is
formulated using NSGA II algorithm. The proposed algorithm occupies less memory
space and takes less CPU time than conventional GA approach. Simulation results of
the IEEE 30-bus system have been presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the
proposed approach to solve the VSC-OPF problem. Simulation were carried out using
NSGA II and are found that voltage stability is improved in the proposed approach
than other approaches, the algorithm has helped to improve the voltage security level
of the system.

References
1. Alsac, O., Scott, B.: Optimal load flow with steady state security. IEEE Transactions on
Power Systems PAS-93(3), 745–751 (1974)
2. Adel, A., Ela, A.E.L., Spea, S.R.: Optimal Correction Actions for Power Systems using
Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm. Electric Power Systems Research 79, 722–733 (2009)
3. Wood, A.J., Wollenberg, B.F.: Power Generation Operation and Control. John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., NewYork (1996)
 Voltage Stability Constrained Optimal Power Flow 801

4. Baghaee, H.R., Jannati, M., Vahidi, B., Hosseinian, S.H., Rastegar, H.: Improment of
Voltage Stability and Reduce Power System Losses by Optimal GA-Based Allocation of
Multi–type FACTS Devices. In: IEEE Conference Publications, pp. 209–214 (2008)
5. Canizares, C., et al.: Comparison of voltage security constrained optimal power flow
techniques. In: Proc. 2001, IEEE-PES Summer Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2001)
6. Devaraj, D., Yegnanarayana, B.: A combined genetic algorithm approach for optimal
power flow. In: National Power Systems Conference, NPSC 2000, Bangalore, India, pp.
1866–1876 (2000)
7. Devaraj, D., Roselyn, J.P.: Improved genetic algorithm for voltage security constrained
optimal power flow problem. Int. J. Energy Technology and Policy 5(4), 475–488 (2007)
8. Goldberg, D.E.: Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and MachineLearning.
Addison Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., USA (1989)
9. Dommel, H.W., Tinney, W.F.: Optimal power flow solutions. IEEE Transactions on
Power Apparatus and Systems PAS-87(10), 1866–1876 (1968)
10. Zitzler, E., Thiele, L.: Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms: A Comparative Case
Study and the Strength Pareto Approach. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary
Computation 3(4) (November 1999)
11. Sadat, H.: Power systems analysis. McGraw Hill Publication, New Delhi (1997)
12. Stott, B., Hobson, E.: Power system security control calculations using linear Programming.
IEEE Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems, PAS 97, 1713–1931 (1978)
13. Beyer, H.-G., Deb, K.: On Self-Adaptive Features in Real-Parameter Evolutionary
Algorithm. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 5(3), 250–270 (2001)
14. Deb, K., Pratap, A., Agarwal, S., Meyarivan, T.: A Fast Elitist Multi-objective Genetic
Algorithm: NSGA-II. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 6(2), 182–197 (2002)
15. Deb, K., Agarwal, R.B.: Simulated Binary Crossover for Continuous Search Space.
Complex Systems 9, 115–148 (1995)
16. Kessel, P., Glavitsch, H.: Estimating the voltage stability of power systems. IEEE
Transactions on Power Delivery 1(3), 346–354 (1986)
17. Lee, K.Y., Park, Y.M., Ortiz, J.L.: A United Approach to Optimal Real and Reactive
Power Dispatch. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 3, 104 (1986)
18. Raghuwanshi, M.M., Kakde, O.G.: Survey on multiobjective evolutionary and real coded
genetic algorithms. In: Proceedings of the 8th Asia Pacific Symposium on Intelligent and
Evolutionary Systems, pp. 150–161 (2004)
19. Srinivas, N., Deb, K.: Multiobjective Optimization Using Nondominated Sorting in
Genetic Algorithms. Evolutionary Computation 2(3), 221–248 (1994)
20. Srinivas, N., Deb, K.: Multiobjective optimization using nondominated sorting in genetic
algorithms. Technical report, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology, Kanpur, India (1993)
21. Paranjothi, S.R., Anburaja, K.: Optimal power flow using refined genetic algorithm.
Electric Power Components and Systems 30, 1055–1063 (2002)
22. Fletcher, R.: Practical Methods of Optimisation. John Willey & Sons (1986)
23. Somasundaram, P., Kuppusamy, K., Kumudini Devi, K.P.: Evolutionary programming
based security constrained optimal power flow. Electric Power Systems Research 72, 137–
145 (2004)
24. Bouktir, T., Belkacemi, M., Zehar, K.: Optimal power flow using modified gradient
method. In: Proceeding ICEL 2000, U.S.T.Oran, Algeria, November 13-15, vol. 2, pp.
436–442 (2000)
25. Yuryevich, J., Wang, K.P.: Evolutionary programming based optimal power flow
algorithms. IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 14(4), 1245–1250 (1999)
26. Zhou, A., Qu, B.-Y., Li, H., Zhao, S.-Z., Suganthan, P.N., Zhang, Q.: Multiobjective
Evolutionary Algorithms: A Survey of the State-of-the-art. Swarm and Evolutionary
Computation 1(1), 32–49 (2011)

View publication stats