A Computational Comparison of Swarm Optimization Techniques for Optimal Load Shedding Under the Presence of FACTS Devices to Avoid Voltage Instability

Abstract

Voltage instability has become a serious threat to the operation of modern power systems. Load shedding is one of the effective countermeasures for avoiding instability. Improper load shedding may result in huge technical and economic losses. So, an optimal load shedding is to be carried out for supplying more demand. This chapter implements bat and firefly algorithms for solving the optimal load shedding problem to identify the optimal amount of load to be shed. This is applied for a multi-objective function which contains minimization of amount of load to be shed, active power loss minimization, and voltage profile improvement. The presence of with and without static VAR compensator (SVC), thyristor-controlled series capacitor (TCSC), and unified power flow controller (UPFC) on load shedding for IEEE 57 bus system has been presented and analyzed. The results obtained with bat and firefly algorithms were compared with genetic algorithm (GA) and also the impact of flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices on load shedding problem has been analyzed.