Power system network partitioning using tabu search

This paper presents a new algorithm to power system network partitioning based on tabu search (TS). TS is a simple heuristic optimization strategy that can achieve the optimal or near optimal solution within a reasonably short time. A 2-step TS-based algorithm is proposed to divide the system network into several subsystems to optimize the use of parallel computer systems for power system analysis. Test results on two IEEE standard networks are presented and compared with those obtained by other combinatorial optimization approaches, namely: simulated annealing parallel simulated annealing and genetic algorithm. It is shown that the proposed TS-based algorithm has higher efficiency and better convergence than the previously proposed methods.