SOLVING OPTIMAL POWER FLOW WITH FACTS DEVICE USING DE ALGORITHM

In a power system, load flow is analyzed to know the real and reactive power flow in the lines connecting buses, bus voltage magnitude, and phase angle. Load flow analysis is required for a power system planning and operation. Economic operation of power system requires adjustment in real power generation of generators. Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) problem is solved to know this optimal real power generation. Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem is a combination of economic load dispatch and power flow problem. OPF finds economic real power generation schedule for each generator and satisfies real and reactive power balance which is the objective of power flow problem. Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices are used to control transmission power to improve power system performance. STATCOM is a shunt connected latest FACTS device used to control reactive power and voltage in the power system. In this proposed work OPF is solved by including a STATCOM to improve the system performance and to reduce the generating cost. To minimize the generating cost for the power system with STATCOM, intelligent algorithm Differential Evolution (DE) is used. DE has three main operation, they are Mutation, Crossover and Selection. To validate the work with other published work, IEEE 30 bus system is considered for the simulation.