Enhanced GSA-Based Optimization for Minimization of Power Losses in Power System

Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) is a heuristic method based on Newton’s law of gravitational attraction and law of motion. In this paper, to further improve the optimization performance of GSA, the memory characteristic of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is employed in GSAPSO for searching a better solution. Besides, to testify the prominent strength of GSAPSO, GSA, PSO, and GSAPSO are applied for the solution of optimal reactive power dispatch (ORPD) of power system. Conventionally, ORPD is defined as a problem of minimizing the total active power transmission losses by setting control variables while satisfying numerous constraints. Therefore ORPD is a complicated mixed integer nonlinear optimization problem including many constraints. IEEE14-bus, IEEE30-bus, and IEEE57-bus test power systems are used to implement this study, respectively. The obtained results of simulation experiments using GSAPSO method, especially the power loss reduction rates, are compared to those yielded by the other modern artificial intelligence-based techniques including the conventional GSA and PSO methods. The results presented in this paper reveal the potential and effectiveness of the proposed method for solving ORPD problem of power system