Evolutionary strategy method for reactive power planning of power systems

Reactive power planning is a complicated mixed optimization problem. Therefore, it is rather difficult to find out the global optimal solution with traditional methods. An evolutionary strategy (ES) method is proposed in the paper in which the integer and continuous variables are treated with different mutation approaches. Then the method is applied to the optimization of reactive power planning. The method does not necessitate the optimization problem be derivable nor the initial point be of any special value. Also it has high possibility of obtaining the global optimal solution. Testing results of applying this method to an IEEE-9 bus system show that the method has good convergence, strong adaptation and feasibility to the optimal solution. This project is supported by Foundation for Excellent Young Teachers, Ministry of Education, China.