Social welfare maximization based optimal energy and reactive power dispatch using ant lion optimization algorithm

In this paper an optimal energy and reactive power dispatch problem is solved by using the ant lion optimization (ALO) algorithm by considering the total cost minimization and social welfare maximization (SWM) objectives. Two different market models are proposed in this work, i.e., conventional/sequential market clearing and the proposed/simultaneous market clearing. In each market model, two objectives, i.e., total cost minimization and SWM are considered. The conventional social welfare (SW) consists the benefit function of consumers and the cost function of active power generation. In this paper, the conventional SW is modified by including the reactive power cost function. The reactive power cost calculation is exactly same as that in the conventional practice. The most important difference is that instead of doing cost calculation in post-facto manner as in conventional practice, simultaneous approach is proposed in this work. The scientificity and suitability of the proposed simultaneous active and reactive power methodology has been examined on standard IEEE 30 bus test system