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Absrruct--This paper proposes a parallel evolutionary OPF problem for searching the global optimum solution.
programming (EP) approach for solving the optimal power The EP technique is a stochastic optimization method
flow (OPF) problem. The parallel EP-OPF approach is less which uses the mechanics of evolution to search for
sensitive to the choice of starting points and types of optimal solution to a given problem. A population of
generator cost curves. The developed algorithm is
candidate solutions is evolved toward the global optimum
implemented on a Beowulf cluster with 31 Intel Pentium IV
2.66GHz processors which are arranged in master-slave through the use of a mutation operator and competition
structure. The proposed approach has been tested on the scheme. The EP technique is capable of incorporating
IEEE 30- and 118-bus systems. Computational speedup and new constraints arising from open access, non-convex
performance of the master-slave topology is then compared solution surfaces and FACTS devices. It is also
to those of the sequential EP approach. particularly suitable to non-monotonic solution surfaces
where many local minima may exist.
Index Terms-Evolutionary Programming, Optimization,
Optimal Power Flow. In our previous paper [6], an EP-based OPF solution
algorithm (EP-OPF) has been developed, which is capable
I. INTRODUCTION of determining the global optimal solution to the OPF
problem for a range of constraints and objective functions.
PTIMAL power flow (OPF) provides a means for
0 minimizing the cost of power system operation so as
to meet the load demand under various operational
The problems of the starting-point sensitivities and
linearisation of non-convex generator cost curves are
overcome by the developed serial EP-OPF algorithm in
constraints. Solving the OPF problem is of paramount
[6]. To improve the speed of the computation, this paper
importance in power system operation under the de-
reports work on the development of a parallel form of the
regulated environment of the electricity industry. It is a
previous EP-OPF algorithm and its implementation on a
highly constrained and large dimensional nonlinear
Beowulf computer cluster with 31 Intel Pentium IV
optimization problem, which is difficult to solve.
2.66GHz processors. The computational speedup and
Previously, various approaches such as, linear
performance of the parallel algorithm is then investigated
programming [ 11, nonlinear programming [2] and interior
using the IEEE 30- and 118-bus systems under the
point method [3], have been employed to solve the OPF
master-slave structure.
problem. These methods rely on convex and continuous
The organization of the paper is as follows: A brief
input/output generator curves to obtain the global
review of the OPF problem is given in Section 11. Section
optimum solution, and as such, these curves must be
111 addresses the general scheme of the EP-OPF for
approximated by continuous and monotonic functions.
solving the OPF problem. Implementation of the parallel
However, the OPF problem is in general non-convex, and
EP-OPF on the Beowulf cluster is stated in Section IV.
hence, these simplifying assumptions will lead to sub-
Section V presents the performance of the proposed
optimal solutions. The degree of non-convexity is further
parallel algorithm under the IEEE 30- and 118-bus
increased with the inclusion of FACTS devices on the
systems. Finally, Section VI concludes the paper.
network or the consideration of valve-point loading
effects of thermal generators [4, 51.
FLOWPROBLEM
POWER
11. OPTIMAL
Besides, classical optimization methods are highly
sensitive to starting points and frequently converge to The OPF problem was introduced in the early 1960s
local optimum solutions or diverge completely due to the and has grown into a powerful tool for power system
non-monotonic solution surface. Hence, evolutionary operation and planning. The OPF seeks to determine the
programming (EP) technique [6] has been applied to the optimal control parameter settings to minimize a desired
objective function J; while satisfying numerous
operational constraints [7]. For optimal active- and
This work was supported by the Faculty of Enginecring and reactive-power dispatch, the objective function J; can be
Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic the total generation cost. Voltage profile optimization or
University.
The authors are with the Computational Intelligence Applications minimization of active power loss may also be the
Research Laboratory (CIARLab), Department of Electrical Enginecring, objective. Mathematically, the objective is a function of
The Hong Kong Polytechnic Univcrsity, Hung Horn, Kowloon, Hong system control and dependent variables and can be written
Kong. (e-mail: eechlo@polyu.edu.hk; eecychun@polyu.edu.hk;
eenguyen@polyu.edu.hk; cekpwong@polyu.cdu.hk). as:
0-7803-8237-4/04/$17.0002004IEEE
190
2 0 0 4 IEEE Intemational Conference o n Electric Utility Deregulation, Restructuring and P o w e r Technologies (DRPT2004) April 2004 H o n g K o n g
PROGRAMMING
111. EVOLUTIONARY BASEDOPF
w Mutate Population
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2004 IEEE Intemational Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation, Restructuring and Power Technologies (DRPT2004) April 2004 Hong Kong
VPj = K,<v~
-1.0)~
if vj > vj"" or vi < vyin(6) Assuming the upper limit of an individual's slack node
active power generation is exceeded, and that the slack
!U otherwise
unit is unit 1. Then, the total available capacity of
U iotherwise
ffi' f r
where is the fitness of individual i; fr is the fitness of
of an individual are assigned previously using the
opponent r; and nj is the result of a tournament between
standard mutation as stated in (8). The sum of these
individual i and the randomly chosen opponent r. If the
assigned loadings is then compared to the total generation
population size is k, the k highest scoring individuals are
found from the previous loadflow of that individual. If the
selected to form the resultant population in the next
difference between them is within the operating limits of
generation.
the slack unit, the mutated individual is accepted.
Otherwise, the process is repeated for another four
IV. PARALLEL
EP-OPF ALGORITHM
ANDITS
attempts. If within these attempts a feasible mutated IMPLEMENTATION
individual is not obtained, the constrained mutation is
employed to share the excessive generation of the slack The population size is one of the factors that will affect
unit among the remaining generators. The constrained the performance of the EP-OPF algorithm for seeking the
mutation forces the satisfaction of the slack node's active optimal solution. If a large population size is used, the
power generation constraint as follows. chance of obtaining the optimal solution by mutation and
competition is high. It is obvious that more computing
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2004 IEEE Intemational Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation, Restructuring and Power Technologies (DRPT2004) April 2004 Hong Kong
time is then required. To improve the computation speed be controllable. For both test cases, quadratic generation
while maintaining the same quality of solution, the cost curves have the form, cj = ai + biq + ciq2 . The
parallel EP-OPF algorithm is implemented.
performance of the parallel EP-OPF was compared with
The basis of the proposed parallel EP-OPF algorithm is
the sequential EP-OPF proposed in [6].
to divide the initial population into several sub-
The parallel EP-OPF algorithm was executed on a
populations. Since the size of sub-populations should be
Beowulf cluster consisting of 31 Intel-Pentium IV 2.66
smaller than the initial population, the computation time
GHz processors, which are connected through a Gigabit
will be reduced. A Beowulf cluster is arranged in master-
Ethernet switch. In the two test cases, one processor was
slave structure and the message passing interface (MPI)
assigned as the master node and the remaining thirty
protocol in C language is used [lo] to implement the
processors as slaves. Hence a total of 31 processors were
parallel EP-OPF program.
used in the computation. The specific settings for both the
Fig. 2 depicts the Beowulf cluster configuration for the
sequential and parallel EP-OPF algorithms and system
master-slave parallel EP-OPF topology. In this topology,
data are summarized in the Appendix.
a single master processor is employed to coordinate m
slave processors. The master processor performs the A. IEEE 30-bus Test Case
tournament competition for selecting the fittest The standard IEEE 30-bus loading was used and the
individuals among the sub-populations from the slave quadratic generation cost curve from [ 121 were
processors, which perform mutation and fitness evaluation. sumniarized in Table I. For the sequential EP-OPF, the
The parallel EP-OPF procedure can be described as average cost of solution obtained was $803.45 with the
follows. minimum being $802.91 and maximum of $804.03. For
Master processor randomly initializes the whole the parallel EP-OPF, the average cost of solution obtained
population of individuals. was $803.33 with the minimum being $802.51 and
Master processor divides the whole population maximum of $804.28. The average execution times for
among m slaves and then sends the sub- sequential and parallel EP-OPF were 55.14s and 5.02s
populations to each slave processor. respectively, with a computational speedup of 10.98 for
After receiving the sub-populations, the slave the parallel EP-OPF. The solution details for the
processors execute mutation and fitness evaluation minimum cost were provided in Table 11. The voltage
independently. Then, each slave processor sends profile of the minimum cost solution for the parallel EP-
its result back to the master. OPF is shown in Fig. 3.
After gathering the sub-populations from each
slave, the tournament competition scheme is TABLE I
conducted by the master so as to select the highest GENERATOR
DATAAND COST COEFFICIENTS FOR THE IEEE 3o-BUS
scoring individuals from the parent (master) and
mutated (slaves) populations to form a resultant
population in the next generation.
The stopping rule is checked. If it is not satisfied, 1.75 0.01750
return to step 2. -15 0.00 1.00 0.06250
IO 35 -15 60 0.00 3.25 0.00834
11 10 30 -10 50 0.00 3.00 0.02500
Master I 13 12 40 -15 60 0.00 3.00 0.025001
TABLE I1
MINIMUMSOLUTION FOUND BY EP-OPF IN THE IEEE 3o-BlJS TESTCASE
Sequential EP-OPF I Parallel EP-OPF I
Slave 1 Slave 2
V. CASESTUDIES
The proposed parallel EP-OPF algorithm has been In this case, solutions from the sequential and parallel
applied to the OPF problem in the IEEE 30-bus system EP-OPF were similar but the execution time of the
and then the IEEE 118-bus system [ 111. The objective parallel algorithm was much faster since the work was
function to be minimized is the total system active power divided among 30 slaves. From [12], a solution of
generation cost, permitting all generators' active power $802.40 was reported which violated the slack node lower
generations, voltage magnitudes and transformer taps to Q-limit slightly by approximately 1.7MVAr. However,
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2004 IEEE International Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation, Restructuring and Power Technologies (DRPT2004) April 2004 Hong Kong
"7 ................
TABLE IV
RESULTS R\I THE IEEE 30- AND 1 18-BUS SYSTEMS
Generation
Processor Run cost ($)
Method Number Time Speedup Min. Max. Ave.
Fig. 4. Convergence of the parallel EP-OPF in the IEEE 30-bus system.
IEEE 30-bus System
B. IEEE II8-bzrs Test Case Sequential
EP-OPF I 55.14 1 802.91 804.03 803.45
The proposed parallel EP-OPF algorithm was further Parallel
tested on the lEEE 118-bus system with 54 generators. EP-OPF 31 5.02 10.98 802.51 804.28 803.33
Although a solution could be obtained, the speed of
IEEE 118-bus Svstcm
convergence was very slow and at most of the time, the Sequential
solution was unable to converge. It was due to the large EP-OPF 1 4692.5 1 1125.00 1131.38 1129.06
search space where most of the solutions were infeasible. Parallel
The infeasibility was due to a large power flow along the EP-OPF 31 394.87 11.88 1122.92 1132.53 1128.98
corridor of the power system, which surpassed generators
reactive power and PQ node voltage limits. VI. CONCLUSIONS
The search space can be reduced by reducing the A parallel evolutionary programming-based optimal
number of generators. In this case, 10 generators were power flow (EP-OPF) algorithm has been established
selected. The selected generators were allowed to mutate based on the sequential EP-OPF reported in [6]. The
during the EP searching process. Since the search space parallel EP-OPF algorithm has been successhlly and
was significantly reduced, the convergence for optimal effectively implemented on the Beowulf cluster arranged
solution was greatly improved. in master-slave structure. The performance of the
For the sequential EP-OPF, the average cost of proposed parallel EP-OPF algorithm has been
solution obtained was $1 129.06 with the minimum being demonstrated by its application to the IEEE 30- and 118-
$1 125.00 and maximum of $1 131.38. For the parallel EP- bus systems with quadratic generation cost curve. The
OPF, the average cost of solution obtained was $1 128.98 algorithm has accurately and reliably converged to the
with the minimum being $1122.92 and maximum of global optimum solution in each case, and the quality of
$1 132.53. The average execution times for sequential and the solution is comparable to the sequential counterpart. A
parallel EP-OPF were 4692.5s and 394.87s respectively, faster execution time is yielded for the parallel EP-OPF
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2004 I E E E Intemational Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation, Restructuring and P o w e r Technologies (DRPT2004) April 2004 Hong Kong
algorithm as computation loads have been divided among K. P. Wong, and Y. W. Wong, “Genetic and genetickimulated-
annealing approaches to economic dispatch”, IEEE Proc., Gen.
the slaves. Hence, a large search space can be handled Trans. BDistrib., vol. 141,110. 5 , pp. 507-513, 1994.
effectively by the parallel EP-OPF algorithm. A method IEEE Committee Report: “Present practices in the economic
has also been developed to effectively initializing the operation of power systems”, IEEE Trans., PAS-90, pp. 1768-1775,
population of the large 118-bus test case. While further 1986.
J. Yuryevich, and K. P. Wong, “Evolutionary programming based
work can be performed to enhance the computational optimal power flow algorithm”, IEEE Trans. on Power Systems,
speed more, the proposed algorithm can also be extended vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 1245-1250, Nov. 1999.
to include environmental and fuel constraints. H. W. Dommel, and W. F. Tinney, “Optimal power flow solutions”,
IEEE Trans. (Power App.& Syst.), vol. PAS-87, pp. 1866-1876,
Oct. 1968.
VII. APPENDIX K. P. Wong, and J. Yuryevich, “Evolutionary-programming-based
algorithm for environmentally constrained economic dispatch”,
System data: For both the IEEE 30- and IEEE 118-bus IEEE Truns. on Power Systems, vol. 13, pp. 301-306, Jan. 1998.
systems, the lower voltage magnitude limits for all buses K. P. Wong, J. Yuryevich, and An Li, “Evolutionary programming
is 0.95 p.u. while the upper limit is 1.05 p.u. for slack based method for evaluation of power flow”, In Proc. Genetic and
node and all load nodes, and 1.1 p.u. for all generation , .
Evolutionarv Comoutation Conference. DD. 1756-1761. Jul. 1999.
I .
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