A novel hybrid optimization approach for reactive power dispatch problem considering voltage stability index

Abstract This paper proposes a novel, reliable, and effective hybrid approach based on the integration of the firefly algorithm (FA) and the adaptive particularly tunable fuzzy particle swarm optimization (APT-FPSO) method to address reactive power dispatch (RPD) problem, a crucial optimization problem in the operation of power systems. Similar to many other original meta-heuristic optimization techniques, the standard FA suffers from some severe drawbacks, most importantly being easily trapped into a locally optimal solution. In order to tackle these difficulties, in the current study, an improved version of fuzzy-based particle swarm optimization is utilized in the internal structure of the original FA. The developed hybrid approach, which is capable of avoiding premature convergence of the original FA by enhancing exploration and exploitation procedures, is employed to determine the optimum control variables (i.e., the voltage of generation buses, tap positions of tap-changer transformers, and reactive power output of shunt compensators) through optimizing three distinct objective functions consisting of total transmission real power loss, the voltage magnitude deviations as well as voltage stability index. To validate the accuracy and competency of the proposed hybrid approach, it is firstly used for solving several benchmark optimization functions and then applied to three test systems at different scales, consisting of IEEE 30-bus, IEEE 57-bus, and IEEE 118-bus power systems, for solving the RPD problem. Eventually, the results of the presented hybrid method will be compared to those obtained by other implemented swarm intelligence-based approaches. The statistical analysis of this research substantiates the robustness and effectiveness of the developed algorithm to handle sophisticated optimization problems, particularly the RPD problem.