Solution of multi-objective optimal power flow using gravitational search algorithm

This article presents application of an efficient and reliable heuristic technique inspired by swarm behaviours in nature namely, gravitational search algorithm (GSA) for solution of multi-objective optimal power flow (OPF) problems. GSA is based on the Newton's law of gravity and mass interactions. In the proposed algorithm, the searcher agents are a collection of masses that interact with each other using laws of gravity and motion of Newton. In order to investigate the performance of the proposed scheme, multi-objective OPF problems are solved. A standard 26-bus and IEEE 118-bus systems with three different individual objectives, namely fuel cost minimisation, active power loss minimisation and voltage deviation minimisation, are considered. In multi-objective problem formulation fuel cost and loss; fuel cost and voltage deviation; fuel cost, loss and voltage deviation are minimised simultaneously. Results obtained by GSA are compared with mixed integer particle swarm optimisation, evolutionary programming, genetic algorithm and biogeography-based optimisation. The results show that the new GSA algorithm outperforms the other techniques in terms of convergence speed and global search ability.