Accepted Manuscript

Title: Gaussian bare-bones water cycle algorithm for optimal

reactive power dispatch in electrical power systems

Authors: Ali Asghar Heidari, Rahim Ali Abbaspour, Ahmad

Rezaee Jordehi

PII: S1568-4946(17)30230-2
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.asoc.2017.04.048
Reference: ASOC 4181

To appear in: Applied Soft Computing

Received date: 29-3-2016

Revised date: 21-4-2017
Accepted date: 23-4-2017

Please cite this article as: Ali Asghar Heidari, Rahim Ali Abbaspour,
Ahmad Rezaee Jordehi, Gaussian bare-bones water cycle algorithm for optimal
reactive power dispatch in electrical power systems, Applied Soft Computing
Journalhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2017.04.048

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Gaussian bare-bones water cycle algorithm for optimal
reactive power dispatch in electrical power systems

Ali Asghar Heidaria, Rahim Ali Abbaspoura, Ahmad Rezaee Jordehib*,

a
School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
b
Department of Electrical Engineering, Lashtenesha-Zibakenar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Lashtenesha, Iran

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 1334404642
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (Ahmad Rezaee Jordehi), [email protected] (Ali Asghar
Heidari),[email protected] (Rahim Ali Abbaspour)

Graphical abstract

Highlights

 A Gaussian bare-bones water cycle algorithm (NGBWCA) has been developed.

 The proposed algorithm has been applied to optimal reactive power dispatch problem.
 Resistive losses and voltage deviations are the objectives in reactive power dispatch problem.
 The proposed algorithm outperforms some state of the art optimisation algorithms.
Abstract

Water cycle algorithm (WCA) is one of the efficient metaheuristic optimization algorithms

inspired by hydrological cycle in nature. WCA can outperform several robust and efficient

metaheuristics in solving optimization problems. Like other metaheuristics, premature convergence and

stagnation in local optima can still occur in WCA. In order to mitigate this problem, in this paper, a

Gaussian bare-bones WCA (NGBWCA) is proposed and utilized to tackle optimal reactive power

dispatch (ORPD) problem in electric power systems. Resistive losses and voltage deviations are the

objectives to be minimised. The efficiency of the proposed NGBWCA optimizer is investigated and

compared to other well-established metaheuristic optimisation algorithms on IEEE 30, 57 and 118 bus

power systems. The experimental results and statistical tests vividly demonstrate the efficiency of the

NGBWCA algorithm in solving ORPD problem.

Keyword: Metaheuristic, Optimal reactive power dispatch, Gaussian bare-bones water cycle

algorithm, Power system

1. Introduction

Optimal power flow (OPF) problem is a powerful and effective service for planning and operation

of power systems that originally developed in 1960s [1-6]. ORPD is considered as one of the most

important subclasses of OPF [7, 8]. The ORPD has attracted an increasing attention over the past years

[9-12]. The reason is that ORPD has a considerable influence on the economical operation of electrical
power systems [9]. The purpose of ORPD is to find voltage of generators, tap ratio of transformers and

reactive power of shunt compensators in order to optimize ohmic transmission losses, considering

different equality and inequality constraints [9-11, 13-16]. These constraints can be expressed as the

power flow equations, voltage and reactive power capacity limitations in transformer taps, generators

and shunt capacitor banks [17]. Since shunt capacitors and transformer ratios are seen as inherently

discrete variables, while the voltages of the generators should be continuous, the full ORPD can be

treated as an optimization problem with both discrete and continuous variables [17, 18]. The multi-

modal nature of this problem makes it very challenging and formidable.

Over the last decade, numerous metaheuristics have been emerged by mimicking diverse

phenomena in nature. These stochastic optimizers have been broadly applied to ORPD problem due to

their exploration/exploitation capabilities, simplicity and fast convergence trends. WCA is an efficient

optimizer that can outperform several well-established metaheuristics and no one to the best of our

knowledge has investigated its performance on ORPD task. The main contribution of this paper is to

propose and utilize the enhanced Gaussian bare-bones WCA (NGBWCA) for tackling the ORPD

problem. For this purpose, three well-known IEEE 30-bus, 57-bus and 118-bus test systems are utilized

to substantiate the effectiveness of NGBWCA and basic WCA optimizers. The achieved results are

compared with those of other state of the art optimisation algorithms. Experimental results on ORPD

problem verify that the NGBWCA can demonstrate a better performance than WCA and other

optimizers.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 is dedicated to the related works, Section 3

describes the ORPD problem; Section 4 explains the proposed NGBWCA for tackling ORPD problem;

Section 5 is devoted to the results and discussion, finally, conclusions are drawn in the last section.

2. Related works
 In contemporary power systems, ORPD problem has attracted widespread interest. ORPD is

among the most commonly investigated problems in power systems. So far, many traditional approaches

such as linear programming (LP) [19], nonlinear programming (NLP) [20], quadratic programming (QP)

[21, 22], Newton [23] and interior point methods (IPM) [24, 25] have been used to solve ORPD

problem. These techniques exhibit some merits, [26] however, they have some limitations, which have

been discussed in [27-30]. Therefore, to handle the complexity of ORPD, a large body of literature has

utilized metaheuristic optimisation algorithms [31].

In recent years, different metaheuristics such as evolution strategies [32], evolutionary

programming [33, 34], genetic algorithm (GA) [35, 36], adaptive GA (AGA) [13], particle swarm

optimization (PSO) [38], seeker optimization algorithm (SOA) [16], differential evolution (DE) [39-42],

teaching–learning-based optimization (TLBO) [8, 31, 43], harmony search (HS) [44], firefly algorithm

(FA) [45], biogeography-based optimization (BBO) [46], gravitational search algorithm (GSA) [47, 48],

and grey wolf optimizer (GWO) [49] have been successfully utilized to tackle ORPD problem.

There are numerous metaheuristics in literature, but, it must be noted that each optimizer has its own

strengths and weaknesses. Hence, some research works have proposed hybridisation of different

metaheuristics for tackling ORPD effectively. Esmin et al. [50] have introduced an effective method for

minimizing the power loss by utilizing a new PSO-based optimizer combined with mutation mechanism.

The results testified the outperformance of the proposed algorithm over PSO. In 2008, a new hybrid

PSO technique with some fuzzy operators has been applied to solve ORPD problem [51]. In 2010,

Zhang successfully proposed the hybridization of dynamic multi-group self-adaptive DE method

(DMSDE) for solving ORPD problem [52]. In 2014, Ghasemi et al. proposed modified imperialist

competitive method hybridized with invasive weed optimization (MICA-IWO) to solve ORPD problem

[54]. They proved that the MICA-IWO can discover superior results compared to basic methods. In
2015, a new hybrid Nelder–Mead simplex based firefly optimizer (HFA) has been utilized to tackle

ORPD [55]. It has been proved that HFA can expose better convergence curves and robustness

compared to the basic firefly algorithm. In 2015, Singh et al. introduced a modified PSO, referred to as

ALC-PSO for solving ORPD problem. Moreover, in 2016, a new chaos-embedded krill herd (KH)

optimizer has been used to solve ORPD problem [56]. Some of the main researches on ORPD problem

have been tabulated as Table 1.

WCA can be regarded as a well-established metaheuristic optimisation algorithm, developed by

Eskandar et al. [66]. The main idea of WCA is inspired from the idealized water cycle in nature. WCA

has gained a growing attention because of its simple structure and efficacy. Up to 2017, the performance

of WCA has been substantiated on a wide range of mathematical and real-world applications [67-73].

In 2014, Haddad et al. used original WCA for optimal operation of reservoir systems. The results

approved high efficiency, reliability and fast convergence of WCA [72]. Sadollah et al. introduced the

multi-objective WCA to handle constrained and engineering optimisation problems [70].

In 2015, an evaporation rate based WCA (ERWCA) was developed to solve constrained

optimisation problems [69]. In ERWCA, an adaptive evaporation rate was incorporated to adaptively

adjust the evaporation rate of the algorithm. Furthermore, new created streams (search agents) search

near the best solution (see) according to the idea of variance. It's worth noting that the adaptive rate in

ERWCA will be decreased during the course of the run of the algorithm. In majority of evaluated test

cases, ERWCA demonstrated a better efficacy than the basic WCA and other well-established

techniques [69, 70]. In [68], Sadollah et al. applied WCA to discrete truss optimization.
 In 2016, basic WCA has been used to minimize the total inventory cost in a multi-product

economic production quantity (EPQ) model [74]. The simulation results revealed that conventional

WCA outperforms stochastic fractal search (SFS) and simulated annealing (SA) techniques. In [75],

Deihimi et al. proposed a modified multi-objective WCA for operation management of micro-grids and

they verified that the proposed optimizer is capable of providing an improved efficiency over multi-

objective PSO. In [76], MOWCA has been employed to find optimal locations and parameters of unified

power flow controller (UPFC) and power system stabilizer (PSS) in electric power systems. The authors

have measured the voltage deviation, power loss and time multiplied squared error (ITSE) as the

objective functions [76]. The simulation on IEEE 39-bus power system affirms the competence of

MOWCA when compared with either PSO and GA. In 2017, Gradient-based WCA (GWCA) has been

proposed and applied to benchmark functions and chaos suppression problem [73]. The attained results

indicate the viability and efficiency of GWCA. Haroon et al. applied ERWCA to short‐term

hydrothermal coordination problem [77]. Moreover, Heidari et al. introduced a chaotic WCA (CWCA)

to tackle engineering test cases [78].

To date, WCA has not been applied to ORPD problem. In this paper, an improved variant of WCA

is developed and applied to ORPD problem in electric power systems. The proposed WCA variant

attempts to provide a better trade off between exploration and exploitation capabilities, in a way that

premature convergence is mitigated.

3. The ORPD problem

In this research, power loss and total voltage deviation index have been used as objective function

for ORDP problem. Control variables of the ORPD problem include VG, voltage at PV buses; T,

transformer tap settings; QC, vector of shunt capacitor/inductor [1, 3].

Hence, the vector of control variables u may be formed as

uT V G1 ...V G N ,T1 ,...,T N T ,QC1 ...QC N (1)
G C

where NC denotes the number of shunt VAR compensators, NT represents the number of transformer

branches and NG shows the number of generators [2].

In this problem, equality constraints are active power balance equation and reactive power balance

equation that are considered during power flow calculations [4]. The inequality constraints considered in

this problem are as follows.

Generator constraints: Generation bus voltages including slack bus and reactive power outputs

including slack bus should be constrained by their lower and upper boundaries as expressed as below

[5].

V Gmin
i
V Gi V Gmax
i
, i 1, 2,..., N G (2)

QGmin
i
QGi QGmax
i
, i 1, 2,..., N G (3)

Transformer constraints: Transformer tap settings should be regulated by their lower and upper bounds

as follows.

T i min Ti T i max , i 1, 2,..., N T (4)

Shunt VAR compensator restrictions: These should be constrained within their corresponding

boundaries as below.

QCmin
i
QC i QCmax
i
, i 1, 2,..., N C (5)

Security limitations: The apparent power of each transmission line must be lower than its upper limit

and the voltages of all load buses must be within their specified ranges.
 3.1 Constraint handling

Currently, there exist numerous researches dedicated to develop effective constraint handling

strategies for meta-heuristic algorithms [7]. Based on latest literature, the penalty functions have been

extensively utilized to handle the various constraints of ORPD problem [8-11], because of their

simplicity of employment. In this article, some penalty functions are added to the main objective

function to constraint related dependent variables. Therefore, the objective function is expanded as [12]:

N Vlim N Qlim
lim 2
f Ploss v (V i V i ) Q (QGi QGlimi )2 (6)
i 1 i 1

where v and Q define the penalty terms, N Vlim shows the set of numbers of generator buses that their

voltage is not located inside the limits, N Qlim represents the number of buses that reactive power

generation is not inside the bounds. V i lim and QGlimi are expressed as [12]:

V i if V i min V i V i max
V i lim V i min if V i V i min (7)
max max
Vi if V i Vi

QGi if QGmin
i
QG i QGmax
i

V i lim QGmin
i
if QGi QGmin
i
(8)
QGmax
i
if QGi QGmax
i

Conventional WCA is only capable to handle continuous variables [13-15]. In order to handle the

discrete and integer variables effectively, some adjustments are incorporated which are similar to used

strategy in [16]. These modifications have been discussed and explained in details in [16].

3.1.Objective functions for single-objective ORPD

In this article, the following two objective functions have been used for validation of the proposed

methodology.
Minimization of real power transmission loss: This objective function aims to minimize the power loss:

NE
minimize J (PLoss ) g k (V i 2 V j2 2V iV j cos ij ) (9)
k 1

where Ploss represents the active power loss function, gk indicates the conductance of branch k, Vi and Vj

shows the voltages of ith and jth bus respectively and NE depicts the number of transmission lines [3, 16,

17].

Minimization of TVD (total voltage deviation): This objective function aims to enhance the voltage

profile of the power system:

NL
minimize J (TVD ) V i V i ref (10)
k 1

Where NL depicts the number of buses, and V i ref shows the preferred value of the voltage magnitude.

This value is often equal to 1.0 p.u. [3, 16, 17].

4. Proposed Gaussian bare-bones WCA algorithm

4.1. Summary of WCA algorithm

WCA optimizer can be regarded as an efficient optimizer inspired by the hydrological cycle in

nature [66]. Hydrologic cycle, in brief, may be expressed as the continuous movement of water on,

above, or below the earth’s surface. It is a vital procedure for the survival of ecosystems [83]. The WCA

was developed according to indirect movement patterns from streams toward the rivers and from rivers

toward sea as the temporal global best solution [66]. The evaporation and raining processes can assist

WCA for exploring new region of the search space, while stream movements can support WCA for

exploiting the neighbourhood of the explored solutions. As a result, revision of these operators can
influence the overall performance of WCA. In order to employ WCA, required steps are explained as

follows:

Step 1: Set the primary parameters: Npop, Nsr, dmax, maximum iteration MIT.

Step 2: Create the initial population randomly over the search space and choose the initial sea,

rivers, and streams according to Eqs. (11) - (13):

 Sea 
 River   x 1 x 21 x 31 ... x N1 var 
 1   1 
   x 12 x 22 x 32 ... x N2 var 
Total Population =    (11)
Stream N sr 1   
   N pop N pop N pop N pop 
  x 1 x2 x3 ... x N var 
Stream N pop 

N sr  Number of Rivers +1 (12)

N streams  N pop  N sr (13)

Where stream, river and the sea demonstrate 1×Nvar dimensional arrays, the solutions are defined as

stream =[x1,x2,x3,…,xN], Nsr is total number of rivers and sea, Nstream denotes total number of streams.

Step 3: Calculate the cost of streams:


C i  Cost i  f x 1i , x 2i ,..., x Ni var  i  1, 2,3,..., N pop (14)

where Npop specifies the population size. Some of the best solutions (Nsr) are considered as rivers.

The best river is considered as the sea.

Step 4: Compute the flow intensities of rivers and sea using Eq. (15):

 
NS n  round N streams  C n / i sr1 C n , n  1, 2,..., N sr
N
(15)
 where 𝐶𝑛 = 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑛 − 𝐶𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑁𝑠𝑟+1 , NSn is number of streams that run to the certain rivers or sea.

Streams can flow to the sea and rivers according to their strengths. The better solutions will

manage more randomly chosen streams. One stream cannot be assigned to more than one river.

Step 5: As the exploitation phase [69], streams can flow into the sea and rivers based on:

i 1
X Stream  X Stream
i
 rand C   X Sea
i
 X Stream
i
 (16)

i 1
X Stream  X Stream
i
 rand C   X River
i
 X Stream
i
 (17)

where rand is a random value inside (0, 1) and C indicates a value inside (1, 2). When C>1,

Streams can run to the rivers in different directions.

Step 6: Similar to previous step (see Fig.1), rivers flow into the sea based on Eq. (18):

i 1
X River  X River
i
 rand C   X Sea
i
 X River
i
 (18)

Step 7: Exchange the position of existing rivers with newly attained streams, if those streams

have better fitness values (see Fig. 2).

Step 8: Set the best obtained river as the new sea and exchange their positions.

Step 9: Check the evaporation condition based on the pseudo-code U1 [69]:

pseudo-code U1
i
if X Sea  X Ri iver  d max or rand < 0.1 then
i  1, 2,3,..., N sr  1 (19)
Run raining step using Eq . (23)
end if

where dmax is a very small value for adjusting the exploitation inclination near the best solution.

This operator should be utilized for the search agents that move toward the sea. The evaporation

operation is similar to mutation process in the GA algorithm [69, 70]. This equation is designed

in order for preventing the WCA from premature convergence to LO [69]. This paper employs
 an enhanced version of WCA proposed in [69]. In evaporation rate (ER) based WCA (ERWCA)

[69], the ER can be obtained by:

ER  rand  Sum  NS n  / (N sr  1), n  2,..., N sr (20)

Based on Eq. (20), ER of rivers with more streams is lower than the rate of other rivers and

their streams. In ERWCA, two models of evaporation can be utilized: evaporation among sea

and rivers (pseudo-code U1)/ streams (pseudo-code U2):

pseudo-code U 2
i
if X Sea  X Streams
i
 d max
i  1, 2,3,..., NS 1 (21)
Run raining step using Eq . (24)
end if

The other condition is evaporation between the rivers with a few streams (pseudo-code U3) as:

pseudo-code U3
for i = 2 : N sr  1
if  exp  k / MIT   rand  &  NS i  ER  (22)
Run raining step using Eq . (23)
end
end

where k shows the iteration number.

Step 10: The raining procedure for unconstrained and constrained tasks occurs according to Eq.

(23) and Eq. (24), respectively:

new
X Stream  LB  rand  UB  LB  (23)

new
X Stream  X sea   0.5  randn 1, N var  (24)

where LB and UB denote the lower and upper bounds of the unconstrained problem, respectively,

μ coefficient corresponds to the concept of variance for controlling the range of searching area

nearby the optimum solutions of the constrained problems, and Randn is a random number. The
 raining procedure is utilized to increase the exploitation tendency of WCA nearby the optimum

solutions.

Step 11: Decrease dmax using Eq. (25):

i 1
d max  d max
i
 d max
i
/ MIT (25)

Step 12: Check the termination condition, if it is satisfied, stop; otherwise, go to Step 5.

The Flowchart of the WCA algorithm is demonstrated in Fig 3.

4.2.Proposed methodology

In this section, first, Bare-bones PSO (BBPSO) is described briefly and then, the Gaussian bare-

bones WCA and its enhanced variant are presented in details.

4.2.1. BBPSO algorithm

The PSO algorithm is recognized as a well-established population-based stochastic metaheuristic

optimisation algorithm that inspires the social life of birds and fishes [84]. In PSO, each particle is

drawn towards its personal best solution (Pbest) and the global best solution (Gbest) discovered so far [12].

In [58, 85], it has been proved that each particle converges according to Eq. (26):

c1  Pbest i (t )  c 2 Gbest (t )
lim X i (t )  (26)
t  c1  c 2 
where c1 and c2 represent learning factors of PSO. Regarding PSO’s convergence performance, Kennedy

[86] proposed an enhanced Bare-Bones PSO (BBPSO) method by eliminating the velocity component in

the conventional algorithm. The BBPSO is evidently parameter-free and compact [87]. In the modified

BBPSO (BBExp) [86], the positions are updated using Eq. (27):

 
N 0.5  Gbest (t )  Pbest i (t )  , G best (t )  Pbest i (t )
X id (t  1)  
 if p  0.5
(27)
 otherwise
 Pbest i (t )
where p is a random value in (0,1) and N represents a Gaussian distribution. According to Eq. (27), there

is 50% chance that the ith dimension of particle Xi changes to its personal best location [88].

4.2.2 Gaussian bare-bones WCA

Premature convergence is a well-known deficiency in metaheuristic optimization algorithms [90].

The reason is that an efficient metahuristic should be capable of striking a fine balance between

exploration and exploitation tendencies [78]. In exploration, topography of search space should

extensively be explored using some randomized motions. In contrast, a deep exploitation of vicinity of

the explored areas is the key objective of the second stage. Attaining a stable equilibrium among these

inclinations is challenging because of the stochastic nature of metaheuristics. Therefore, researchers are

interested to alleviate stagnation problems by modifying the basic operators or enhancing the searching

mechanisms of metaheuristics. The WCA is not an exception and suffers from premature convergence in

dealing with more complex problems. The reason is that WCA cannot find a right balance between

exploration and exploitation in some challenging cases. To mitigate those problems, new movement

operators are developed here. These modifications can assist WCA to increase its exploration tendency

at initial steps and then, focus on exploitation nearby better explored locations inside the search domain.

In WCA, a number of the best search agents (streams) are classified as rivers and the best obtained

solution is considered as the sea. In this regard, each river can be treated as a local leader of other

streams. Hence, the streams are guided towards more promising regions of the search space [67].

Partially, this strategy may assist WCA only in exploitation (intensification) [66].

In BBPSO, the new positions are generated and distributed according to a Gaussian distribution

for sampling the target landscape of the problem with regard to current position and the best position at

the current iteration [91]. As a result, at the initial steps of the searching process, the BBPSO emphasizes
on exploration, and gradually, it will highlight the exploitation. In BBPSO, the Gaussian sampling acts

as an effective tuning technique that activates throughout exploration steps and is continued as the

exploitation trend increases [88]. This mechanism can also be beneficial for other metaheuristics to

manage a steady trade-off between exploration and exploitation trends [92]. Inspiring from this concept,

an enhanced WCA (GBWCA) is developed in this paper with regard to the advantages of BBPSO. In

GBWCA, new streams and rivers are formed based on the Gaussian mutation mechanism as:

X i
stream

(t  1)  

 N 0.5   X sea (t )  X stream (t )  , X sea (t )  X stream (t )
i i i i

if p  0.5

The streams flow into the sea using Eq. (22) & Eq. (23) otherwise (28)

X i
river

(t  1)  

 N 0.5   X sea (t )  X river (t )  , X sea (t )  X river (t )
i i i i
 if p  0.5

The streams flow into the sea using Eq. (24) otherwise
(29)

where p is a random value inside (0, 1).

4.2.2. Enhanced Gaussian bare-bones WCA

In this section, a modified movement strategy is utilized to enrich random activities and the

exploration potentials of GBWCA. In the enhanced GBWCA (NGBWCA), streams of other rivers aside

from the sea can randomly flow toward three different destinations including their own river, the

strongest rivers (together with sea) and both of them. Based on this mechanism, the diversity of streams

can continually be increased, and therefore, explorative patterns of search agents are significantly

deepened. In NGBWCA, the streams can be updated based on Eq. (30):

 
 N 0.5   X river
i
(t )  X stream
i
(t )  , X river
i
(t )  X stream
i
(t ) if p  0.3


X stream (t  1)  
i 
 N 0.5   X i (t )  X i (t )  , X i (t )  X i (t )
 sea stream  sea stream 
if 0.3  p  0.5
(30)

 
N 0.5   X sea
i
(t )  X river
i
(t )  , X sea
i
(t )  X river
i
(t ) if 0.5  p  0.7

 The streams flow into the sea according to Eq. (22) & Eq. (23) otherwise
 

 N 0.5   X river

i
(t )  X stream
i
(t )  , X river
i
(t )  X stream
i
(t )  if p  0.3


X river (t  1)  
i 
 N 0.5   X i (t )  X i (t )  , X i (t )  X i (t )
 sea stream  sea stream  if 0.3  p  0.5
(31)



N 0.5   X sea

i
(t )  X river
i
(t )  , X sea
i
(t )  X river
i
(t ) if 0.5  p  0.7
 The rivers flow into the sea according to Eq. (24) otherwise

Due to the following features, we expect the outperformance of the proposed NGBWCA over

conventional WCA.

 NGBWCA inherits the advantages from WCA and WCA with evaporation rate.

 Dynamic ER parameter in NGBWCA adaptively controls the evaporation of streams, which

encourages more exploration in unfruitful areas of the search space.

 In the case of stagnation to local optima, the proposed GBBPSO-based mechanisms can enhance

the explorative capability of NGBWCA and assist it in continuing the global search.

To utilize the NGBWCA, the cost of each stream is evaluated using ORPD cost functions

described in Eq. (9) and Eq. (10). The main phases of the NGBWCA are described in Algorithm 1.

Algorithm 1. Main steps of NGBWCA algorithm to solve OPRD task

1. Start
2. Load the data of power system
3. Set the parameters: Npop, Nsr, and MIT
4. Calculate the number of streams
5. Generate random streams
6. Determine the intensity of flow via Eq.(15)
7. while (t < MIT) or (termination condition)
8. for i = 1 : Npop
9. Update streams based on Eq.(30)
10. Evaluate the ORPD cost function for new stream
11. if cost(Stream(new)) < cost(river)
12. River = Stream(new);
13. if cost(Stream(new)) < cost(Sea)
14. Sea = Stream(new);
 15. end if
16. end if
17. Update rivers by Eq. (31)
18. Calculate the ORPD cost for new river
19. if cost(River(new)) < cost(Sea)
20. Sea = River(new);
21. end if
22. end for
23. for i = 1 : NSn
24. if (norm (Sea-Stream) < dmax)
25. New streams are generated based on Eq.(24)
26. end if
27. end for
28. Decrease the dmax by Eq. (25)
29. end while
30. Return the values of PLoss, TVD and control variables.

5. Simulation results and discussion

To substantiate the performance and effectiveness of the proposed NGBWCA, it has been applied

to ORPD problem in IEEE 30, 57 and 118 bus power systems. The particulars of these case studies can

be found in [18]. The NGBWCA and WCA methods have been implemented in MATLAB R2012a

(7.14) computing environment and the simulation run on a Pentium IV PC 4 GB RAM. The population

size of optimizers is set to 50. The "maximum number of function evaluation" NFEmax is set to 5.0E+04.

For these simulations, 50 trial runs were carried out to handle ORPD problem. The penalty factors were

set as 500 [57]. Results of interest are exposed in bold expression in the relevant tables to highlight the

capabilities of the NGBWCA technique. It must be noted here that the optimisation results have only

been obtained for WCA and NGBWCA, while the results of other compared algorithms have been

directly taken from corresponding papers. Therefore, the number of function evaluations is the same for

WCA and NGBWCA, while the number of function evaluations in other algorithms may be different.
5.1.Results for IEEE 30 bus power system

Here, the results have been presented for IEEE 30 bus power system, whose single line diagram

can be seen in Fig 4. Generator data, line data, load data, reactive power sources, voltage magnitudes of

buses and transformer tap settings can be found in [47]. IEEE 30-bus power system contains 19 control

variables. In addition, it consists of six generator voltage magnitudes, 4 transformers and 9 shunt VAR

compensation devices [8, 17, 54]. The total demand of the system is 2.834 p.u. [17].

5.1.1. power loss minimization

In this section, NGBWCA algorithm is utilized in order to minimize power loss as the main

objective function. The obtained results of the proposed NGBWCA are presented in Table 2. The

optimal results achieved by NGBWCA method have been fairly compared with results of WCA.

Moreover, the results of some state of the art algorithms including OGSA [17], GSA [47], PSO [93], DE

[39], CLPSO [93], HFA [55], FA [55], BFOA [55], TLBO [9], QOTLBO [9], BBO [46] and SARGA

[14] have been presented. The minimum power loss achieved by using the new NGBWCA is 4.4801

MW, which is better than that of conventional WCA. The value of PLoss yielded by NGBWCA is less by

0.036 MV (i.e., 7.97%), 0.03421 MW (i.e., 7.57%) and 0.0183 (i.e., 4.06%) compared with the best

results of WCA (4.5161 MV), GSA (4.514310 MW) [47] and OGSA (4.4984 MW) [17], respectively. It

must be acknowledged again that the NFE of other algorithms are not the same with NFE of NGBWCA

and WCA, therefore, they cannot be compared fairly. The outperformance of NGBWCA over

conventional WCA is due to the strong exploration capability of NGBWCA, resulted by integration of

Gaussian mutation.

5.1.2. TVD Minimization

 In this subsection, the proposed NGBWCA algorithm is utilized to minimize the TVD of IEEE 30

bus power system. The achieved results can be found in Table 3. The results achieved by the NGBWCA

and some other state of the art algorithms such as HFA [55], FA [55], BFOA [55], TLBO [9], QOTLBO

[9], OGSA [17], GSA [47] and DE [39] have been tabulated. The value of TVD for NGBWCA is better

than other methods. From Table 4, it can be observed that NGBWCA is able to improve the TVD index

by 92.133% with regard to initial loss, compared to 88.113% with WCA, 89.010% with OGSA [17],

88.383% with GSA [47], 74.406% with BFOA [55] 83.166% with HFA [55], 80.126 % with FA [55],

84.317% with TLBO [9], 85.296% with QOTLBO [9], 84.352% with DE [39].

5.2.Results for IEEE 57 bus power system

In this section, IEEE 57-bus system, whose single line diagram has been depicted as Fig 5, is used

in order to evaluate the efficacy of NGBWCA. The particulars of this power system can be found in

[54]. ORPD problem for this system should be solved as a 25-dementional search space with 15

transformer taps, 7 generator voltages, and 3 reactive power sources [54] (see Table 2).

5.2.1. power loss Minimization

Table 4 shows the obtained results of power loss minimization for IEEE 57 bus power system. To

reveal the superiority of the suggested strategy, in this table, NGBWCA-based results have been

presented along with results of other optimizers including WCA, NLP [16]; DEs with local search

denoted as L-SACP-DE [16], L-SaDE [16], L-DE [16]; canonical GA (CGA) [16]; BBO [46]; modified

BBO [46]; OGSA [17], GSA [47]; adaptive GA (AGA) [16]; PSO-cf [16]; CLPSO [16]; PSO-w [16];

SPSO-07 [16] and SOA [16].

 From Table 4, it can be seen that NGBWCA results can realize near optimal value of PLoss.

Amongst compared approaches, the best PLoss value was attained by the NGBWCA strategy. The value

of PLoss returned by NGBWCA is less by 0.0155 MV (i.e., 6.24%) compared to the best result of WCA.

The best solutions obtained by different methods for this objective are presented in Table 5.

5.2.2. TVD Minimization

In Table 6, the best solutions obtained by NGBWCA for TVD minimisation have been tabulated

along with results of WCA and OGSA [17]. From this table, it can be recognized that NGBWCA

outperforms other compared methods. It is also found from Table 6 that NGBWCA is able to improve

the TVD index by 47.29%, compared to 46.24% with WCA and 43.40% with OGSA [17]. The

simulation outcomes of TVD minimization indicates that the proposed NGBWCA provides better

solutions than conventional WCA. These evidences show the viability of NGBWCA in solving ORPD

problems.

5.3.Results for IEEE 118-bus power system

To demonstrate and judge the competence of new NGBWCA in tackling larger scales ORPD

problems, the proposed optimizer is applied to ORPD problem for IEEE 118 bus power system. This

system contains 64 busses, 54 generators, 186 lines, 14 sources and 9 transformer taps [9, 17, 55]. The

full data of the system may be found in [94]. Here, restrictions and settings of the system have been

derived from [17].

5.3.1. power loss Minimization

In this section, NGBWCA is employed in order to minimize power loss of the considered system.

The comparative results are tabulated in Table 7. The optimal values attained by NGBWCA and WCA

techniques have been presented along with those obtained by other optimizers such as PSO [53], CLPSO
[53], GSA [47] and OGSA [17]. According to the results, the best PLoss was found by the NGBWCA

technique. The modified optimizer can provide the active power loss as 121.47 MW, which is the best

result. The value of PLoss discovered by NGBWCA is less by 10.36 MV (i.e., 7.85%) in comparison

with the best outcome of WCA.

5.3.2. TVD Minimization

The best results achieved by NGBWCA after 50 runs for TVD minimization are presented in Table 8.

From this table, it can be concluded that in TVD optimization, the best solution achieved by NGBWCA

is better than that of WCA. The main factors that result in outperformance of the proposed NGBWCA

over WCA, can be listed out as below.

 NGBWCA still inherits the advantages from WCA and WCA with evaporation rate.

 Dynamic ER parameter in NGBWCA will adaptively control the evaporation of streams, which

encourages more exploration in unfruitful areas of the search space.

 In the case of stagnation to local optima, the proposed GBBPSO-based mechanisms can enhance

the explorative capability of NGBWCA and assist it in continuing the global search.

6. Conclusions and future directions

In this paper, a novel variant of water cycle algorithm, named as NGBWCA, has been proposed

for solving optimal reactive power dispatch (ORPD) problem in electric power systems. In NGBWCA,

using Gaussian mutation, the exploration capability of algorithm has been enriched and the premature

convergence problem has been alleviated. ORPD is considered as a challenging multi-modal,

constrained optimisation problem with high number of decision variables. To investigate the efficiency

of the new NGBWCA, it was tested on IEEE 30, 57 and 118 bus power systems. The simulation results

approve the outperformance of NGBWCA over conventional WCA. Some directions for future research

are proposed as follows.

 The proposed NGBWCA can be applied to other global optimisation problems, especially

engineering optimisation problems.

 Hybridization of the proposed WCA with other well-established metaheuristic

optimisation algorithms may lead to better results.

 Application of newly developed metaheuristic optimisation algorithms to ORPD problem

is recommended.
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Fig.1 Movement process in WCA
Fig.2 Swapping the superior stream and the inferior river
Fig.3 Flowchart of WCA algorithm (based on [66])
Fig. 4 Single line diagram of IEEE 30 bus power system [54].
Fig. 5 Single line diagram of IEEE 57-bus test system [54]
Table 1 Summary of previous research works on reactive power dispatch (ORPD) problem

Ref. Year Optimizer Objective function Number of buses

in test systems
[57] 2005 MAPSO PLoss a 30, 118
2008 PLoss, VSI b and TVD
[51] FAPSO c 30, 118

[58] 2008 DE PLoss 30

[14] 2009 SARGA PLoss 14, 30
[16] 2009 SOA PLoss 57, 118
[59] 2010 IGA VSI 30, 57
[53] 2010 CLPSO PLoss and VP d 30, 118
[39] 2011 DE PLoss, VSI and VP 30
[60] 2011 DE VP 30
[61] 2012 MNSGA-II PLoss and VSI 30, 118
[62] 2012 PSO PLoss 6
[63] 2012 ABC PLoss 30, 118
[64] 2012 GSA PLoss and VP 57, 118
[10] 2012 HDE PLoss and VSI 30
[11] 2012 BBO PLoss and VP 30, 118
[9] 2013 QOTLBO PLoss, VSI and TVD 30, 118
[48] 2013 OSAMGSA PLoss, VSI and VP 30
[17] 2014 OGSA PLoss, VSI and TVD 30, 57, 118
[54] 2014 MICA-IWO PLoss 30, 57, 118
[55] 2015 HFA PLoss, VSI and TVD 30, 118
[49] 2015 GWO PLoss and TVD 30, 118
[65] 2015 ALC-PSO PLoss and TVD 30, 57, 118
[56] 2016 CKH PLoss and TVD 30, 57, 118
a
Power loss,
b
voltage stability index,
c
total voltage deviation,
d
voltage profile
 Table 2 Results of different approaches in IEEE 30 bus power system (NA means not available)

Variable NGBWCA WCA OGSA [17] GSA [47] BBO [46] CLPSO [93] PSO [93]
Generator voltage
V1 1.0502 1.0720 1.0500 1.071652 1.1000 1.1000 1.1000
V2 1.0382 1.0215 1.0410 1.022199 1.0944 1.1000 1.1000
V5 1.0107 1.0400 1.0154 1.040094 1.0749 1.0795 1.0867
V8 1.0212 1.0507 1.0267 1.050721 1.0768 1.1000 1.1000
V11 1.0503 0.9761 1.0082 0.977122 1.0999 1.1000 1.1000
V13 1.0500 0.9676 1.0500 0.967650 1.0999 1.1000 1.1000
Transformer tap ratio
T11 0.9520 1.0984 1.0585 1.098450 1.0435 0.9154 0.9587
T12 1.0295 0.9824 0.9089 0.982481 0.90117 0.9000 1.0543
T15 0.9720 1.0959 1.0141 1.095909 0.98244 0.9000 1.0024
T36 0.9661 1.0593 1.0182 1.059339 0.96918 0.9397 0.9755
Capacitor banks
QC-10 0.0097 1.6536 0.0330 1.653790 4.9998 4.9265 4.2803
QC-12 0.0125 4.3741 0.0249 4.372261 4.987 5.0000 5.0000
QC-15 0.0212 0.1171 0.0177 0.119957 4.9906 5.0000 3.0288
QC-17 0.0541 2.0892 0.0500 2.087617 4.997 5.0000 4.0365
QC-20 0.0043 0.3515 0.0334 0.357729 4.9901 5.0000 2.6697
QC-21 0.0289 0.2681 0.0403 0.260254 4.9946 5.0000 3.8894
QC-23 0.0229 0.0000 0.0269 0.000000 3.8753 5.0000 0.0000
QC-24 0.0498 1.3792 0.0500 1.383953 4.9867 5.0000 3.5879
QC-29 0.0106 0.0006 0.0194 0.000317 2.9098 5.0000 2.8415
PLoss , MW 4.4801 4.5161 4.4984 4.514310 4.5511 4.5615 4.6282
TVD, p.u. 0.8413 0.8766 0.8085 0.875220 NA 0.4773 1.0883

Variable HFA [55] FA [55] BFOA [55] TLBO [9] QOTLBO [9] DE [39] SARGA [14]
Generator voltage
V1 1.100000 1.10000 1.1000 1.1000 1.1000 1.1000 NA
V2 1.054332 1.06440 1.0261 1.0936 1.0942 1.0931 NA
V5 1.075146 1.07455 1.0696 1.0738 1.0745 1.0736 NA
V8 1.086885 1.08690 1.1000 1.0753 1.0765 1.0756 NA
V11 1.100000 1.09164 1.1000 1.0999 1.1000 1.1000 NA
V13 1.100000 1.09900 1.1000 1.1000 1.0999 1.1000 NA
Transformer tap ratio
T11 0.980051 1.00000 0.9800 1.0251 1.0664 1.0465 NA
T12 0.950021 0.94000 0.9400 0.9439 0.9000 0.9097 NA
T15 0.970171 1.00000 1.0500 0.9992 0.9949 0.9867 NA
T36 0.970039 0.97000 0.9800 0.9732 0.9714 0.9689 NA
Capacitor banks
QC-10 4.700304 3.00000 3.1000 0.0500 0.0500 5.0000 NA
QC-12 4.706143 4.00000 4.6000 0.0500 0.0500 5.0000 NA
QC-15 4.700662 3.30000 5.0000 0.0500 0.0500 5.0000 NA
QC-17 2.305910 3.50000 2.1000 0.0500 0.0500 5.0000 NA
QC-20 4.803520 3.90000 3.7000 0.0457 0.0445 4.4060 NA
QC-21 4.902598 3.20000 2.3000 0.0500 0.0500 5.0000 NA
QC-23 4.804034 1.30000 1.9000 0.0286 0.0283 2.8004 NA
QC-24 4.805296 3.50000 2.3000 0.0500 0.0500 5.0000 NA
QC-29 3.398351 1.42000 0.1000 0.0258 0.0256 2.5979 NA
PLoss , MW 4.529000 4.56910 4.6230 4.5629 4.5594 4.5550 4.57401
TVD, p.u. 1.625000 1.77520 1.5300 1.8760 1.9057 1.9589 NA
 Table 3 results for IEEE 30 bus power system

Variable NGBWCA WCA HFA [55] FA [55] BFOA [55] QOTLBO [9] TLBO [9] OGSA [17] GSA [47] DE [39]
Generator voltage
V1 1.0083 0.9729 1.003458 0.99770 0.9500 1.0005 1.0121 0.9746 0.983850 1.0100
V2 1.0101 1.0451 1.016380 1.02170 1.0702 0.9919 0.9806 1.0273 1.044807 0.9918
V5 1.0009 1.0194 1.019451 1.01672 0.9645 1.0217 1.0207 0.9965 1.020353 1.0179
V8 1.0008 0.9980 1.018221 1.00100 1.0258 1.0147 1.0163 0.9982 0.999126 1.0183
V11 1.0110 1.0761 0.982272 1.04810 1.0375 0.9950 1.0293 0.9826 1.077000 1.0114
V13 1.0010 1.0441 1.015460 1.01910 0.9914 1.0447 1.0323 1.0403 1.043932 1.0282
Transformer tap ratio
T11 1.0099 0.9014 0.990000 1.04000 0.9800 1.0076 1.0435 0.9909 0.900000 1.0265
T12 1.0815 1.1554 0.900000 0.90000 0.9600 0.9030 0.9056 1.0629 1.100000 0.9038
T15 1.0197 1.0499 0.980000 0.98000 1.0200 1.0472 1.0195 1.0762 1.050599 1.0114
T36 1.0153 0.9618 0.960000 0.96000 0.9900 0.9674 0.9492 1.0117 0.961999 0.9635
Capacitor banks
QC-10 0.0089 0.0742 3.200000 3.60000 4.8000 0.0487 0.0484 0.0246 0.000000 4.9420
QC-12 0.0071 0.4624 0.500000 1.30000 1.3000 0.0304 0.0066 0.0175 0.473512 1.0885
QC-15 0.0091 4.0325 4.900000 2.70000 4.5000 0.0500 0.0500 0.0283 5.000000 4.9985
QC-17 0.0400 0.0491 0.100000 0.90000 2.0000 0.0000 0.0009 0.0403 0.000000 0.2393
QC-20 0.0009 4.4234 3.800000 4.20000 4.3000 0.0500 0.0500 0.0000 5.000000 4.9958
QC-21 0.0434 0.0515 5.000000 2.70000 3.9000 0.0500 0.0500 0.0270 0.000000 4.9075
QC-23 0.0002 4.0049 5.000000 3.00000 40000 0.0500 0.0495 0.0385 4.999834 4.9863
QC-24 0.0273 4.9728 3.900000 1.70000 4.5000 0.0500 0.0493 0.0257 5.000000 4.9663
QC-29 0.0000 4.6458 1.500000 1.80000 3.4000 0.0256 0.0024 0.0000 5.000000 2.2325
PLoss, MW 6.3142 6.9172 5.750000 6.34000 10.570 6.4962 7.1859 6.9044 6.911765 6.4755
TVD, p.u. 0.0458 0.0692 0.098000 0.11570 0.1490 0.0856 0.0913 0.0640 0.067633 0.0911
Table 4 Obtained results for loss minimization in IEEE 57 bus power system

Variable NGBWCA WCA OGSA [17] GSA [47] NLP [16] CGA [16] AGA [16] PSO-w [16] PSO-cf [16]
Generator voltage
V1 1.0600 1.0605 1.0600 1.060000 1.06 0.9686 1.0276 1.06 1.06
V2 1.0591 1.0602 1.0594 1.060000 1.06 1.0493 1.0117 1.0578 1.0586
V3 1.0492 1.0497 1.0492 1.060000 1.0538 1.0567 1.0335 1.04378 1.0464
V6 1.0399 1.0018 1.0433 1.008102 1.06 0.9877 1.0010 1.0356 1.0415
V8 1.0586 1.0600 1.0600 1.054955 1.06 1.0223 1.0517 1.0546 1.06
V9 1.0461 1.0589 1.0450 1.009801 1.06 0.9918 1.0518 1.0369 1.0423
V12 1.0413 1.0538 1.0407 1.018591 1.06 1.0044 1.0570 1.0334 1.0371
Transformer tap ratio
T4–18 0.9712 0.9923 0.9000 1.100000 0.91 0.92 1.03 0.90 0.98
T4–18 0.9243 0.9814 0.9947 1.082634 1.06 0.92 1.02 1.02 0.98
T21–20 0.9123 0.9354 0.9000 0.921987 0.93 0.97 1.06 1.01 1.01
T24–26 0.9001 0.9953 0.9001 1.016731 1.08 0.90 0.99 1.01 1.01
T7–29 0.9112 0.9963 0.9111 0.996262 1.00 0.91 1.10 0.97 0.98
T34–32 0.9004 0.9712 0.9000 1.100000 1.09 1.1 0.98 0.97 0.97
T11–41 0.9128 0.9865 0.9000 1.074625 0.92 0.94 1.01 0.90 0.90
T15–45 0.9000 0.9245 0.9000 0.954340 0.91 0.95 1.08 0.97 0.97
T14–46 1.0218 1.0345 1.0464 0.937722 0.98 1.03 0.94 0.95 0.96
T10–51 0.9902 1.0056 0.9875 1.016790 0.98 1.09 0.95 0.96 0.97
T13–49 0.9568 0.9825 0.9638 1.052572 0.98 0.90 1.05 0.92 0.93
T11–43 0.9000 0.9715 0.9000 1.100000 0.98 0.90 0.95 0.96 0.97
T40–56 0.9000 0.9923 0.9000 0.979992 0.98 1.00 1.01 1.00 0.99
T39–57 1.0118 1.0186 1.0148 1.024653 1.08 0.96 0.94 0.96 0.96
T9–55 1.0000 1.0024 0.9830 1.037316 1.03 1.00 1.00 0.97 0.98
Capacitor banks
QC-18 0.0914 0.0988 0.0682 0.078254 0.08352 0.084 0.0168 0.05136 0.09984
QC-25 0.0587 0.0590 0.0590 0.005869 0.00864 0.00816 0.01536 0.05904 0.05904
QC-53 0.0634 0.0629 0.0630 0.046872 0.01104 0.05376 0.03888 0.06288 0.06288
PLoss , p.u. 0.2327 0.2482 0.2343 0.23461194 0.2590231 0.2524411 0.2456484 0.2427052 0.2428022
TVD, p.u. 1.2710 1.3852 1.1907 NA NA NA NA NA NA
Variable CLPSO [16] SPSO-07 [16] L-DE [16] L-SACP-DE [16]L-SaDE [16] SOA [16] BBO [46] BBO* [46]
Generator voltage
V1 1.0541 1.0596 1.0397 0.9884 1.0600 1.06 1.0600 1.0600
V2 1.0529 1.0580 1.0463 1.0543 1.0574 1.0580 1.0504 1.0580
V3 1.0337 1.0488 1.0511 1.0278 1.0438 1.0437 1.0440 1.0442
V6 1.0313 1.0362 1.0236 0.9672 1.0364 1.0352 1.0376 1.0364
V8 1.0496 1.06 1.0538 1.0552 1.0537 1.0548 1.0550 1.0567
V9 1.0302 1.0433 0.94518 1.0245 1.0366 1.0369 1.0229 1.0377
V12 1.0342 1.0356 0.99078 1.0098 1.0323 1.0336 1.0323 1.0351
Transformer tap ratio
T4–18 0.99 0.95 1.02 1.05 0.94 1.00 0.96693 0.99165
T4–18 0.98 0.99 0.91 1.05 1.00 0.96 0.99022 0.96447
T21–20 0.99 0.99 0.97 0.95 1.01 1.01 1.0120 1.0122
T24–26 1.01 1.02 0.91 0.98 1.01 1.01 1.0087 1.0110
 T7–29 0.99 0.97 0.96 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97074 0.97127
T34–32 0.93 0.96 0.99 1.09 0.97 0.97 0.96869 0.97227
T11–41 0.91 0.92 0.98 0.92 0.9 0.90 0.90082 0.90095
T15–45 0.97 0.96 0.96 0.91 0.97 0.97 0.96602 0.97063
T14–46 0.95 0.95 1.05 1.08 0.96 0.95 0.95079 0.95153
T10–51 0.98 0.97 1.07 0.99 0.96 0.96 0.96414 0.96252
T13–49 0.95 0.92 0.99 0.91 0.92 0.92 0.92462 0.92227
T11–43 0.95 1.00 1.06 0.94 0.96 0.96 0.95022 0.95988
T40–56 1.00 1.00 0.99 0.99 1.00 1.00 0.99666 1.0018
T39–57 0.96 0.95 0.97 0.96 0.96 0.96 0.96289 0.96567
T9–55 0.97 0.98 1.07 1.1 0.97 0.97 0.96001 0.97199
Capacitor banks
QC-18 0.09888 0.03936 0 0 0.08112 0.09984 0.09782 0.09640
QC-25 0.05424 0.05664 0 0 0.05808 0.05904 0.058991 0.05897
QC-53 0.06288 0.03552 0 0 0.06192 0.06288 0.6289 0.062948
PLoss , p.u. 0.2451520 0.2443043 0.2781264 0.2791553 0.2426739 0.2426548 0.24544 0.242616
TVD, p.u. NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
BBO* means (after relaxing Q-limit of bus 2 and 9) [46].
Table 5 The best dispatch solutions (p.u.) achieved by different approaches on IEEE 57-bus power system

Algorithms  PG  QG PLoss QLoss % PSave

CGA [16] 12.7752 3.1744 0.267170 −1.1565 6.1308
AGA [16] 12.7661 3.0679 0.258072 −1.1326 9.3276
PSO-w [16] 12.7677 3.1026 0.259729 −1.1598 8.7453
PSO-cf [16] 12.7559 3.0157 0.247866 −1.1137 12.9132
CLPSO [16] 12.7660 3.1501 0.257968 −1.1295 9.3642
SPSO-2007 [16] 12.7822 3.1818 0.274210 −1.2532 3.6576
L-DE [16] 12.7999 3.3656 0.291864 −1.2158 −1.2380
L-SACP-DE [16] 12.7812 3.2085 0.273183 −1.1868 4.0185
L-SaDE [16] 12.7549 3.0191 0.246712 −1.1209 13.2696
SOA [16] 12.7543 2.9837 0.246248 −1.0914 13.4820
GSA [47] NA NA 0.23461194 NA 3.31452
OGSA [17] 12.7423 2.916 0.2343 −1.0712 17.68
WCA 12.7556 3.1923 0.2482 −1.1620 12.79
NGBWCA 12.7325 2.8234 0.2327 −1.0564 18.24
Table 6 Simulation results of TVD minimization in IEEE 57 bus power system

Variable NGBWCA WCA OGSA[17] Variable NGBWCA WCA OGSA[17]

Generator voltage T15–45 0.9058 0.9063 0.9265
V1 1.0151 1.0242 1.0138 T14–46 0.9764 0.9801 0.9960
V2 0.9810 0.9953 0.9608 T10–51 1.0600 1.0631 1.0386
V3 1.0002 1.0098 1.0173 T13–49 0.9100 0.9131 0.9060
V6 1.0039 1.0176 0.9898 T11–43 0.9302 0.9294 0.9234
V8 1.0198 1.0268 1.0362 T40–56 0.9770 0.9782 0.9871
V9 1.0254 1.0283 1.0241 T39–57 1.0271 1.0286 1.0132
V12 1.0081 1.0125 1.0136 T9–55 0.9000 0.9053 0.9372
Transformer tap ratio Capacitor banks
T4–18 1.0185 1.0217 0.9833 QC-18 0.0550 0.0593 0.0463
T4–18 0.9601 0.9614 0.9503 QC-25 0.0590 0.0591 0.0590
T21–20 0.9458 0.9496 0.9523 QC-53 0.0381 0.0382 0.0628
T24–26 0.9919 0.9901 1.0036 PLoss , p.u. 0.2920 0.3002 0.3234
T7–29 0.9951 0.9986 0.9778 TVD, p.u. 0.6501 0.6631 0.6982
%
T34–32 0.9000 0.9000 0.9146 TVDimprove 47.29 46.24 43.40
T11–41 0.9622 0.9634 0.9454
Table 7 Evaluation of solutions for IEEE 118-bus system
In power loss minimisation

Variable NGBWCA WCA OGSA [17] GSA [47] CLPSO [53] PSO [53]

Generator voltage
V1 1.0215 1.0234 1.0350 0.9600 1.0332 1.0853
V4 1.0431 1.0472 1.0554 0.9620 1.0550 1.0420
V6 1.0312 1.0302 1.0301 0.9729 0.9754 1.0805
V8 1.0539 1.0565 1.0175 1.0570 0.9669 0.9683
V10 1.0271 1.0293 1.0250 1.0885 0.9811 1.0756
V12 1.0316 1.0382 1.0410 0.9630 1.0092 1.0225
V15 1.0129 1.0431 0.9973 1.0127 0.9787 1.0786
V18 1.0075 1.0001 1.0047 1.0069 1.0799 1.0498
V19 1.0102 1.0812 0.9899 1.0003 1.0805 1.0776
V24 1.0208 1.0271 1.0287 1.0105 1.0286 1.0827
V25 1.0531 1.0521 1.0600 1.0102 1.0307 0.9564
V26 0.9941 0.9940 1.0855 1.0401 0.9877 1.0809
V27 1.0291 1.0290 1.0081 0.9809 1.0157 1.0874
V31 1.0275 1.0274 0.9948 0.9500 0.9615 0.9608
V32 1.0201 1.0202 0.9993 0.9552 0.9851 1.1000
V34 1.0014 1.0031 0.9958 0.9910 1.0157 0.9611
V36 1.0412 1.0421 0.9835 1.0091 1.0849 1.0367
V40 1.0400 1.0439 0.9981 0.9505 0.9830 1.0914
V42 1.0512 1.0502 1.0068 0.9500 1.0516 0.9701
V46 1.0170 1.0168 1.0355 0.9814 0.9754 1.0390
V49 1.0510 1.0531 1.0333 1.0444 0.9838 1.0836
V54 1.0392 1.0401 0.9911 1.0379 0.9637 0.9764
V55 1.0331 1.0329 0.9914 0.9907 0.9716 1.0103
V56 1.0372 1.0369 0.9920 1.0333 1.0250 0.9536
V59 1.0564 1.0512 0.9909 1.0099 1.0003 0.9672
V61 1.0565 1.0561 1.0747 1.0925 1.0771 1.0938
V62 1.0489 1.0495 1.0753 1.0393 1.0480 1.0978
V65 1.0435 1.0435 0.9814 0.9998 0.9684 1.0892
V66 1.0435 1.0434 1.0487 1.0355 0.9648 1.0861
V69 1.0489 1.0496 1.0490 1.1000 0.9574 0.9665
V70 1.0113 1.0099 1.0395 1.0992 0.9765 1.0783
V72 1.0382 1.0371 0.9900 1.0014 1.0243 0.9506
V73 0.9926 0.9999 1.0547 1.0111 0.9651 0.9722
V74 0.9934 0.9942 1.0167 1.0476 1.0733 0.9713
V76 1.0324 1.0323 0.9972 1.0211 1.0302 0.9602
V77 1.0185 1.0184 1.0071 1.0187 1.0275 1.0781
V80 1.0021 1.0082 1.0066 1.0462 0.9857 1.0788
V85 1.0312 1.0301 0.9893 1.0491 0.9836 0.9568
V87 1.0212 1.0203 0.9693 1.0426 1.0882 0.9642
V89 1.0387 1.0325 1.0527 1.0955 0.9895 0.9748
V90 1.0071 1.0070 1.0290 1.0417 0.9905 1.0248
 V91 0.9989 0.9987 1.0297 1.0032 1.0288 0.9615
V92 1.0001 1.0009 1.0353 1.0927 0.9760 0.9568
V99 1.0467 1.0454 1.0395 1.0433 1.0880 0.9540
V100 1.0213 1.0207 1.0275 1.0786 0.9617 0.9584
V103 1.0416 1.0413 1.0158 1.0266 0.9611 1.0162
V104 1.0174 1.0181 1.0165 0.9808 1.0125 1.0992
V105 1.0223 1.0246 1.0197 1.0163 1.0684 0.9694
V105 1.0340 1.0339 1.0408 0.9987 0.9769 0.9656
V110 1.0103 1.0164 1.0288 1.0218 1.0414 1.0873
V111 1.0345 1.0344 1.0194 0.9852 0.9790 1.0375
V112 1.0160 1.0167 1.0132 0.9500 0.9764 1.0920
V113 1.0181 1.0179 1.0386 0.9764 0.9721 1.0753
V116 1.0330 1.0329 0.9724 1.0372 1.0330 0.9594
Transformer tap ratio
T8 1.0051 1.0047 0.9568 1.0659 1.0045 1.0112
T32 0.9614 0.9612 1.0409 0.9534 1.0609 1.0906
T36 0.9961 0.9959 0.9963 0.9328 1.0008 1.0033
T51 0.9523 0.9501 0.9775 1.0884 1.0093 1.0000
T93 1.0521 1.0499 0.9560 1.0579 0.9922 1.0080
T95 0.9520 0.9579 0.9956 0.9493 1.0074 1.0326
T102 0.9812 0.9800 0.9882 0.9975 1.0611 0.9443
T107 0.9510 0.9573 0.9251 0.9887 0.9307 0.9067
T127 0.9754 0.9750 1.0661 0.9801 0.9578 0.9673
Capacitor banks
QC-5 −0.0723 −0.0771 -0.3319 0.00 0.0000 0.0000
QC-34 0.0483 0.0487 0.0480 7.46 11.7135 9.3639
QC-37 −0.2390 −0.2387 -0.2490 0.00 0.0000 0.0000
QC-44 0.0032 0.0075 0.0328 6.07 9.8932 9.3078
QC-45 0.0372 0.0367 0.0383 3.33 9.4169 8.6428
QC-46 0.0624 0.0603 0.0545 6.51 2.6719 8.9462
QC-48 0.0172 0.0179 0.0181 4.47 2.8546 11.8092
QC-74 0.0013 0.0014 0.0509 9.72 0.5471 4.6132
QC-79 0.0621 0.0621 0.1104 14.25 14.8532 10.5923
QC-82 0.0463 0.0464 0.0965 17.49 19.4270 16.4544
QC-83 0.0560 0.0560 0.0263 4.28 6.9824 9.6325
QC-105 0.0653 0.0657 0.0442 12.04 9.0291 8.9513
QC-107 0.0072 0.0069 0.0085 2.26 4.9926 5.0426
QC-110 0.0108 0.0112 0.0144 2.94 2.2086 5.5319
WCA OGSA GSA CLPSO PSO
PLoss , MW 121.47 131.83 126.99 127.7603 130.96 131.99
TVD, p.u. 1.452 1.512 1.1829 NA NA NA
Table 8 Comparison of NGBWCA results for IEEE 118 bus power system in
TVD minimization

Variable NGBWCA WCA OGSA [17] Variable NGBWCA WCA OGSA [17]
Generator voltage
V1 1.0002 1.0000 1.0388 V100 1.0021 1.0029 1.0032
V4 1.0202 1.0194 0.9872 V103 0.9998 1.0502 0.9843
V6 0.9936 0.9996 0.9925 V104 0.9852 0.9872 0.9880
V8 0.9771 0.9812 0.9905 V105 0.9994 0.9992 1.0003
V10 1.0051 1.0031 0.9919 V105 1.0198 1.0136 1.0033
V12 1.0120 1.0131 1.0077 V110 1.0152 1.0043 1.0040
V15 0.9853 0.9859 1.0034 V111 1.0241 1.0247 1.0331
V18 1.0557 1.0575 0.9773 V112 1.0023 1.0023 0.9877
V19 1.0190 1.0203 1.0324 V113 0.9951 0.9825 0.9705
V24 1.0197 1.0201 1.0285 V116 0.9970 0.9976 1.0270
V25 1.0108 1.0246 0.9705 Transformer tap ratio
V26 0.9954 0.9883 1.0175 T8 1.0484 0.9956 0.9841
V27 1.0204 1.0164 1.0117 T32 0.9511 0.9712 1.0377
V31 0.9990 0.9976 1.0014 T36 1.0312 1.0340 0.9573
V32 0.9877 0.9913 0.9988 T51 0.9811 0.9817 0.9952
V34 1.0211 1.0027 1.0158 T93 1.0224 1.0212 0.9622
V36 0.9656 0.9687 0.9916 T95 0.9972 0.9976 1.0320
V40 1.0031 1.0002 1.0132 T102 1.0249 1.0021 1.0137
V42 1.0012 1.0115 0.9892 T107 0.9621 0.9679 0.9795
V46 1.0512 1.0531 1.0607 T127 1.0102 1.0212 0.9985
V49 1.0001 1.0026 1.0031 Capacitor banks
V54 1.0227 1.0231 1.0236 QC-5 −0.1413 −0.1427 -0.2403
V55 1.0323 1.0346 1.0176 QC-34 0.0212 0.0215 0.0371
V56 1.0139 1.0131 1.0149 QC-37 −0.1319 −0.1390 -0.0437
V59 1.0084 1.0099 1.0584 QC-44 0.0781 0.0712 0.0375
V61 1.0001 1.0000 0.9829 QC-45 0.0459 0.0452 0.0400
V62 1.0027 1.0000 1.0562 QC-46 0.0711 0.0549 0.0749
V65 0.9681 0.9694 0.9724 QC-48 0.1002 0.1076 0.0796
V66 1.0143 1.0175 1.0020 QC-74 0.0082 0.0084 0.0883
V69 0.9995 1.0158 0.9827 QC-79 0.0190 0.0197 0.1218
V70 0.9721 0.9814 0.9997 QC-82 0.1417 0.1435 0.0380
V72 0.9987 0.9910 1.0123 QC-83 0.0921 0.0813 0.0627
V73 0.9946 1.0313 0.9960 QC-105 0.1160 0.1146 0.0830
V74 1.0212 1.0002 1.0232 QC-107 0.0242 0.0279 0.0459
V76 1.0024 1.0097 1.0015 QC-110 0.0257 0.0276 0.0221
V77 1.0122 1.0300 1.0124
V80 0.9998 1.0124 1.0226
V85 1.0205 1.0112 1.0117 NGBWCA WCA OGSA
V87 1.0002 0.9997 1.0058
V89 1.0002 1.0087 1.0076 PLoss , MW 152.31 165.71 157.72
V90 1.0182 1.0145 0.9753 TVD, p.u. 0.3194 0.3752 0.3666
V91 0.9879 0.9934 0.9836
V92 0.9999 0.9994 1.0272
V99 1.0672 1.0712 0.9612