International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

An Efficient Approach for Voltage Stability

Improvement based on Artificial Bee Colony
Algorithm
D.Godwin Immanuel1, a, Dr.G.Selva Kumar2,b and Dr.C.Christober Asir Rajan3,c
1
2
3

Research Scholar, Sathyabama University, Chennai, India

Vice Principal, Excel Engineering College, Komarapalayam, India

Associate Professor, Pondicherry Engineering College, Puducherry, India

dgodwinimmanuel@gmail.com, bgsk7070@gmail.com, casir_70@pec.edu

control action is needed for the proper settings

of control variables. The control variables
consider in this approach are generator
voltages, transformer tap settings and
switchable VAR sources. The causes of voltage
collapse and the control and preventive action
for the necessary protective arrangement of
power system at critical condition is explained
in [1-2].

Keywords: Voltage Stability Index, Volt

Ampere Reactive, Artificial Bee Colony

Abstract. Voltage stability assessment plays an

important role in planning and operation of
secured power system economically. In this
paper an effective algorithm based on Artificial
Bee Colony approach is developed to solve
reactive power control problem for the
improvement of voltage in all load buses. This
algorithm employs optimal settings of control
variables to achieve best solution for the
objective functions. The proposed formulation
is examined in standard IEEE 30 bus test
system with the objective function of real
power loss minimization as well as
minimization of voltage stability index for the
improvement of voltage stability. The test
results are compared with the existing approach
explained in the literature. From the test results
it is absorbed that the voltage stability is
improved satisfactorily.

Lot of conventional optimization

methods like Gradient search method, interior
point method, linear programming method, non
linear
programming
method,
quadratic
programming method are implemented in [3-4].
Due to the limitations such as non convex
nature, non linearity and non differential these
techniques are converged in minimal optimal
solution. Recently literatures are used
intelligent techniques to solve these problems.
Fuzzy based Evolutionary strategy have been
developed and applied for multi objective
reactive power control problems in [5].
Artificial Neural Network based on voltage
stability assessment using voltage instability
measuring indicators used in [6]. Multi
objective reactive power and voltage control
based on Genetic Algorithm is implemented in
[7]. A modified PSO method is reported in [8]
to realize optimal reactive power dispatch
considering voltage stability improvement with
the equality and inequality constraints. Seeker
optimization algorithm is implemented for
optimal reactive power control problem in [9].

Introduction
To maintain the voltage stability in
power system network it requires effective
voltage stability assessment. In this assessment
reactive power and voltage control plays a main
role to maintain the voltage profile and
minimizes the real power loss in the network.
In ability of maintaining voltage stability in the
system may leads to voltage collapse. To avoid
these types of situations an effective way of
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Differential Evolution has been implemented in

[10] for voltage stability improvement.DE has a
realizing approach for optimization problems
and successfully applied in many artificial and
real optimization problems. In [11] Artificial
Bee Colony Algorithm gets the high quality
solution for optimal power flow problem in a
fast manner.
Artificial Bee Colony
optimization algorithm is easy to develop and
easily find the global best solution. The
convergence of this algorithm is very fast and
having high efficiency.

minimized. This real power loss can be

calculated as
nl

PLoss g k [Vi 2 V j2 2ViV j cos( i j )]

k 1

(1)

Minimization of voltage stability index

To assess the stability of the system a
measuring indicator voltage stability index is
essential. The main factor which is affecting
the stability is the inability of the system to
provide reactive power at the critical condition.
To overcome this situations the system operator
must provide the control action immediately. In
this approach an effective algorithm is
developed based on Artificial Bee Colony
algorithm for the minimization of voltage
stability index. The voltage stability index can
be calculated for all the load buses. The voltage
stability index ranges from 0 to 1.0, the load
bus which is having the highest value of
stability index is considered as the most
vulnerable bus. The voltage stability index is
formulated by collecting information from the
load flow analysis by Newton Raphson method.
Consider an n-bus system, the voltage and
current relationship can be expressed as

In this paper the Artificial Bee Colony

algorithm is developed and implemented to
solve reactive power control problem for the
improvement of voltage stability in power
system network. The objective functions
minimization of real power losses and
minimization of voltage stability index are
considered in this approach. The best solution
for these objective functions is obtained by the
proper settings of control variables. The
proposed approach has been verified on
standard IEEE 30 bus test system. The test
result shows the potentiality of the proposed
approach which satisfying all the equality and
inequality constraints considered.
Problem Formulation
Objective Functions

I G YGG
I Y
L LG

The objective of this approach is to find

the optimal value of reactive power and voltage
control variables to get the best solution for the
objective functions based on Artificial Bee
Colony algorithm. In this formulation the
objective functions minimization of real power
loss and minimization of voltage stability index
are considered.

YGL VG
YLL VL

(2)
Rearranging the above equation we get,

VL Z LL
I K
G GL

FLG I L
YGG VG
(3)

FLG YLL YLG

Minimization of real power losses

(4)

The objective function is to minimize

the real power losses in the system. The real
power losses can be minimized by improving
the utilization of reactive power sources so that
the reactive power flows in the network are also

The voltage stability index is formulated by

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Vi&Vj
:
voltage
Vi
i ng 1,.....,magnitude
n
at the buses i & j
Vj
i 1
i & j
:
voltage
phase
(5)
angle at the buses i & j
Problem Constraints
Vi&Vj
:
voltage
Equality Constraints
magnitude at the buses i & j
n
:
number of buses
The equality constraints are framed by
the real and reactive power balance equations at
ng
:
number
of
all the bus bars. The equality constraints can be
generator buses
expressed as
Yij
:
mutual
n
admittance in between the node i
Pgi Pdi Vi
j 1
and j
(6)
V j Yij cos( i j ij )
i&j
:
angle of bus
voltages of bus i and bus j
n
respectively
Q gi Qdi Vi
ij
:
admittance angle
j 1
between the buses i and j
(7)
V j Yij sin( i j ij )
Pgi&Qgi
:
real and reactive
Inequality Constraints
power generation at bus i
Pdi&Qdi
:
real and reactive
The inequality constraints consist of the
power demand at bus i
limits state variables and control variables in
Ps min&Ps max :
minimum
and
transmission system. The inequality constraints
are as follows
maximum slack bus real powers
Qgi min&Qgi max :
minimum
and
Ps min Ps Ps max
maximum reactive power generation
(8)
Vgi min&Vgi max :
minimum
and
Q gi min Q gi Q gi max
maximum values of generator voltages
(9)
Ti min&Ti max :
minimum
and
V gi min V gi V gi max
maximum ranges of tap changing
transformer
(10)
Qci min&Qci max :
minimum
and
Ti min Ti Ti max
maximum
of
reactive
power
(11)
compensation equipment
Sl min&Sl max :
minimum
and
Qci min Qci Qci max
maximum line flow limits
(12)
Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm
S l min S l S l max
Overview
(13)
Artificial Bee Colony algorithm was
Where,
developed by Dervis Karaboga in 2005. This
nl
:
number of lines
algorithm is mimicked from the behavior of
gk
:
conductance of
honey bees. It is a new intelligent search
the kth line
algorithm having the basic components such as
employed foraging bees, unemployed foraging
ng

VSIj 1 F ji

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bees food sources. There are two feedbacks

associated in this algorithm, the positive
feedback is the recruitment of foragers to rich
food sources and negative feedback is the
foragers for poor food sources. In this
algorithm the solution is the position of a food
source and the fitness corresponds to the nectar
amount of a food source. The number of
solutions in the population is equal to the
number of the employed bees or the onlooker
bees. The parameters used in this algorithm are
the number of food sources, the trial limit and
the maximum number of cycles. To apply ABC
algorithm first the given problem is converted
into parameter based problem then implement
the optimization for good solution [12].

iterations, Here 100 iterations are considered as

maximum.
The key parameters selected for the
optimization of reactive power and voltage
control based on Artificial Bee Colony
Algorithm is
Number of control variables
Colony dimension
Limit parameter
Number of cycles

: 14
: 10
: 120
: 100

Results and Discussion

The proposed Artificial Bee Colony
algorithm has been tested on standard IEEE 30bus test system. The network consist of 41
transmission lines, 4 tap changing transformers,
6 generators and 5 static VAR compensators.
The line data bus data and initial setting of
control variables of IEEE 30 bus test system is
taken from [13]. The proposed algorithm can be
demonstrated under the stressed condition of
125 % of load in IEEE 30 bus test system. The
VSI for all the load buses are calculated and it
is ranked according to the severity, the bus
which is having maximum value of VSI is the
most vulnerable bus. The most critical bus is 30
and the value of VSI is 0.1978. Select the most
critical five buses, the buses are load bus 30,
29, 26, 25 and 24. After the implementation of
the proposed algorithm the VSI of load bus 30
is reduced to 0.1601 and the voltage level of all
the load buses are increased and shown in
Fig.1. Hence it is observed that the performance
of the system is improved compared with GA
and DE [10]. Table-1 shows the optimal
settings of control variables for IEEE 30 bus
based on base case, Genetic Algorithm,
Differential Evolution and Artificial Bee
Colony
Algorithm.

Implementation of ABC based approach

The proposed Artificial Bee Colony
approach for optimal reactive power and
voltage
control
for
voltage
stability
improvement has been developed and
implemented using mat lab. In this approach
the voltage level in all the load buses are
improved by the minimization of real power
losses in the system as well as minimization of
voltage stability index. This can be achieved by
the optimal settings of control variables by the
proposed algorithm. The first step in this
approach is initializing the artificial bee colony.
Search the optimal solution by moving towards
the better point by local search methods. From
the Newton Raphson power flow solutions
obtain the dependent and independent variables
and verify all the constraints within the limit.
The generator voltages can be varied within the
range of 0.95 to 1.1 p.u., the transformer tap
settings varies within the range of 0.9 to 1.1 p.u
and the switchable var sources are varies within
the range from 0 to 5 with a step size of 1 p.u.
The stopping criterion is the number of

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1.1

GA

DE

ABC

1.05
1
0.95
0.9
3 4 6 7 9 10 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Load Buses
Fig.1Voltage profile Improvement
Table-1 Optimal settings of control variables for IEEE 30 bus system
Sl. No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

Control
variables
V1
V2
V3
V4
V5
V6
T1
T2
T3
T4
Q30
Q29
Q26
Q25
Q24
P Loss
VSI

Initial settings
1.050
1.040
1.010
1.010
1.050
1.050
0.978
0.969
0.932
0.968
0
0
0
0
0
10.76
0.1978

Optimal setting
using GA
1.050
1.025
1.006
0.989
1.058
1.080
1.050
0.900
0.925
0.950
5
5
5
1
3
10.55
0.1807

Optimal setting
using DE
1.050
1.030
1.006
1.018
1.022
1.050
1.001
1.012
0.915
0.900
5
5
2
1
4
10.363
0.1638

Optimal setting
using ABC
1.050
1.036
1.012
1.023
1.043
1.050
1.032
1.021
0.968
0.938
5
4
5
3
2
10.291
0.1601

approach has been examined under the stressed

condition of 125% of load in IEEE 30 bus test
system. The performance of the proposed
approach was compared with the base case,
GA, DE and ABC based reactive power control
optimization. It is found that Artificial Bee
Colony Algorithm can effectively utilize the
reactive power control variables and satisfies
all the equality and inequality constraints.

Conclusion
In this paper Artificial Bee Colony
algorithm technique has been developed and
successfully applied to solve reactive power
control problems for the improvement of
voltage stability. The objective functions
minimization of VSI and minimization of real
power losses are considered for the
improvement of voltage level in all the load
buses. In this approach the VSI for the most
vulnerable bus 30 is reduced to 0.1601 so that
the voltage level in all the load buses is
improved and also the real power loss is
minimized. The effectiveness of the proposed

References
[1]

ISBN 978-93-80609-17-1
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Kessel P, Glavitsch H.Estimating the

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Trans Power System 1986; 1:346-354.

International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

[2]

Van Cutsem T. A method to compute

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