An integrated optimization technique for optimal power flow solution

The aim of the research work is to propose an integrated optimization technique, established with the integration of the invasive weed optimization (IWO) and Powell’s pattern search (PPS) method. The IWO algorithm has been undertaken as a global search technique, which is inspired from the specific ecological behavior of weeds and has the ability to adapt to the changing environment. The local search PPS method is based upon a conjugate-based search and having excellent exploitation search capability, which helps to improve the solution obtained from IWO technique. The proposed technique is applied to solve optimal power flow (OPF) problem with the flexible AC transmission system devices. The OPF problem is a nonlinear, non-convex optimization problem and consists of continuous and discrete decision variables. The three objective functions comprise total fuel cost, pollutant emission and system transmission loss which are minimized sequentially. The proposed technique is tested on four standard IEEE test systems, and results are compared with the reported results in the literature and found promising. The results illustrate that the proposed technique performs better as compared to IWO technique in terms of the quality of solution and convergence characteristics. Further, t test is performed to validate the statistical performance of the proposed integrated optimization technique.