2012 IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon), 2-5 December 2012, Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia
Reactive Power Dispatch Using Big Bang-Big Crunch
Optimization Algorithm for Voltage Stability Enhancement
Z. Zandi, E. Afjei, and M.Sedighizadeh
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Velenjak, Tehran, 1983963113, Iran.
Abstract— This paper proposes a Big Bang-Big Crunch (BB-
BC) optimization algorithm for voltage stability
improvement. The voltage stability index is used to rank
the load buses. The proposed technique is based on the
minimization of the maximum of L-indices of load buses.
In this study the BB-BC determines settings of control
variables such as transformer tap, reactive power
compensating devices, and generator voltages. The
simulations have been carried out on IEEE 30 -bus and
118- bus test bus systems. The results of the algorithm are
compared with the results obtained by PSO, demonstrate
the efficiency of the BB_BC algorithm.
Keywords Big Bang-Big Crunch; voltage stability; L-index
;reactive power dispatch
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, voltage stability has become a major concern in
power systems planning and operation. This problem has
become very complex due to the continuous growth in the
demand for electricity with unmatched generation and
transmission capacity expansion. Stressed system operating at
a higher loading condition may often result in voltage
instability. In such operating conditions some of the system
parameters will be operating close to their limits and these
parameters by following contingencies such as unexpected
line outages will violate the system limits, which may lead to
voltage collapse. The main factor causing voltage collapse is
the inability of the power system to meet the demand for
reactive power to maintain normal voltage profiles in stressed
situations. There have been many papers by different authors
in comprehending the phenomenon associated with the voltage
instability. Also offering the modification measures to
safeguard the power system networks against such failures [1-
7]. Numerous approaches have been proposed to find the most
effective method to improve the voltage stability. Kessel and
Glavitch [8] developed a voltage stability index based on the
feasibility of solution to the power-flow equation for each
node. Tiranuchit and Thomas [9] have proposed minimum
singular value of the Jacobian of the descriptor network
equations as a voltage security index and discuss techniques
978-1-4673-5019-8/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
for improving the system security with respect to this index. A
nonlinear least squares optimization algorithm and a reactive
power dispatch algorithm using LP technique based on the L-
index proposed in[8] for improving the voltage stability
margin was proposed in [10] and [11] respectively to improve
the static voltage stability. A numerically stable sequential
Primal-Dual LP algorithm was used in [12]. Thanks to
significant improvement in computers’ capability in recent
years, Many salient stochastic methods such as such as
Genetic Algorithm (GA) [13], particle swarm optimization
(PSO) [14], Evolutionary Programming (EP) [15] and
Evolutionary Strategy [16] have been applied for solving
various complex ORPF problems. K. Vaisakh and P. Kanta
Rao [17] present a Differential Evolution (DE)-based
approach for solving optimal reactive power dispatch
including voltage stability limit in power systems. The
methodology of monitoring for voltage stability is based on
the L-index of load buses. An improved Genetic algorithm
(GA) approach for voltage stability enhancement based on the
minimization of the maximum of L-indices is suggested in
[18]. This study proposes a novel optimization method that
relies on the Big Bang and Big Crunch Theory [19]. An
optimization algorithm is constructed inspired by this theory.
It will be called the Big Bang-Big Crunch (BB-BC) method
and generates random points in the Big Bang phase and
shrinks those points to a single representative point via a
center of mass or minimal cost approach in the Big Crunch
phase. Encouraged by properties of this novel algorithm the
authors utilize this method to solve ORPF problems where the
purpose is to minimize an objective function that is the
maximum of the L-indices at load buses. This algorithm is
applied to obtain the optimal control variables so as to
improve the voltage stability level of the system under the
base case and against the critical single line outages in the
system. The performance of the proposed method has been
tested on IEEE 30 and 118- bus test systems. Observations
suggest that the proposed method can work more efficiently in
both cases, when compared to PSO .This paper is organized as
follows: Section 2 introduced voltage stability index. In
section 3 a brief description and mathematical formulation of
ORPD problems is provided. Along with a short description of
the algorithms, the BB-BC approach is described in Section 4.
239
 2012 IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon), 2-5 December 2012, Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia

Section 5 describes implementation of BB-BC in the ORPD

problem. Simulation results are presented for different cases in
section 6. Finally , in section 7 the General conclusions are The problem of reactive power optimization is constrained by
drawn. the following factors:

Equality Constraints
II. VOLTAGE STABILITY INDEX
The equality constraints represent power flow equations, and
The voltage stability analysis of a power system can be are satisfied by running the power flow program. They can be
determined by an index of quantifiable voltage stability, there expressed as follows:
are a variety of indexes that help assess the steady state
voltage stability. In this paper, the voltage stability index ( L-
index )is used [8]. It is based on a load flow analysis and
varies in the range between 0 (for no load) to 1 (voltage
collapse point).This index is able to evaluate the steady state
voltage stability margin of each bus. The L-index calculation
for a power system is briefly discussed below: If a power
system has N number of total bus, number of PV bus and
number of load bus, then the relationship between voltage
and current can be represented as:
Where and , are number of load buses and total
number of buses excluding slack bus respectively; and
are the generator real and reactive power respectively; and
Where are the current and voltage at the generator
are the load real and reactive power respectively; Gij and
buses. are the current and voltage at the load buses.
Bij are the transfer conductance and susceptance between bus i
and bus j respectively.
Rearranging Eq. (1) we obtain
Inequality Constraints

The inequality constraints represent the system operating

constraints. Generator terminal bus voltages, transformers tap
Where
setting, and reactive power generated by the capacitor bank are
the control variables which are self - constrained. The active
The L-indices for a given load condition are computed for all power generation at the slack bus, reactive power generation, load
load buses. The equation for the L-index for j-th node can be bus voltages, and line flow limit are the state variables whose
written as: limit is satisfied in the objective function by penalty
coefficients.

These constrains are as follows:

(iii) real power generation of slack bus limited as follows:

(iv) reactive power outputs and Generator voltages

are restricted as follows:
The values of are obtained from the matrix  .The
indicator is a quantitative measure and is used to
estimate the distance of the actual state of the system to the
stability limit.
Where, is number of voltage buses.
III. PROBLEM FORMULATION
This paper presents an algorithm for reactive power (v) Load Bus Voltage (VL):
optimization to improve voltage stability margin based on L-
index minimization. In this case, the objective is to minimize
the maximum value of L-index of a system, The function
optimized while satisfying equality and inequality constraints. Where, is the number of load buses.
This is mathematically is represented as follows:

240
 2012 IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon), 2-5 December 2012, Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia

(vi) Capacitor bank reactive power is limited as:
Where, NC is the number of capacitor banks.
(vii) Tap settings is limited as follows:
Where stands for center of mass, u is the upper limit of the
parameter, r is a normal random number and k is the iteration
step. Then new point is both upper and lower bounded.
The center of mass is recalculated after the second explosion.
These consecutive explosion and contraction steps are carried
repetitively until a stopping criterion has been met.
V. IMPELIMENTION OF BB-BC IN ORPD PROBLEM

Where, is the number of tap-setting transformer branches.
(viii) Line flow limit: Line flow limited as:
Where, is the number of transmission lines.
Since transformer tap ratios, and capacitor bank reactive
power generation have a discrete nature, while generator
terminal voltages are on the other hand, continuous variables,
the voltage stability enhancement problem can be exactly
formulated as a nonlinear optimization problem with a mixture
of discrete and continuous variables. The next part describes
the proposed approach for solving this optimization problem.
IV. BB-BC METHODE APPRPCHEA
The   BB–BC   method   developed   by   Erol   and   Eksin   [18]   function to the objective function. Provided that the penalty
consists  of  two  phases:  a  Big  Bang  phase,  and  a  Big  Crunch  
phase.   In   the   Big   Bang   phase,   candidate   solutions   are  
randomly   distributed   over   the   search  space. Erol and Eksin
[18] associated the random nature of the big bang to energy
dissipation or the transformation from an ordered state (a
convergent solution) to a chaos state (new set of solution
candidates). The Big   Bang   phase is followed by the Big
Crunch one which is a convergence operator that has many
inputs but only one output termed the ‘‘center of mass”. The
term mass refers to the inverse of the fitness function value
[20]. The point representing the center of mass that is denoted
by is computed as (18)
The implementation of the proposed algorithms for the
optimization problem includes finding the optimal value of
control variables namely, generator bus voltages ( ), the
transformer tap-setting ( ), and the reactive power generation
( ) to minimize the object function while handling the
constraints. The implementation process of BB-BC to the
optimal reactive/voltage control problem is described as
follows:
Fitness Function: In the reactive power optimization problem
under consideration, the objective is to minimize the of
the system satisfying the constraints given by equations (11) to
(17). For each particle, the equality constraints given by
equations (9) and (10) are satisfied by running Newton-
Raphson algorithm. Moreover, the inequality constraints on
the control variables are taken into account in the problem
representation itself and the constraints on the state variables
are taken into consideration by adding a quadratic penalty
function is included, the new objective function then becomes:
where , and are the penalty factors for the
reference bus generator active power limit violation, the load
bus voltage limit violation, generator reactive power limit
violation, and the line flow violation respectively. In the above
objective function , , are defined as:

Where is a point within an n-dimensional search space

generated, is a fitness function value of this point, N is the
population size in the Big Bang phase. After the Big Crunch
phase, the algorithm must create new members to be used as
the Big Bang of the next iteration step which can be done by
utilizing the previous knowledge (center of mass) by
spreading new off-springs around this center of mass using a
normal distribution operation in every direction where the
standard deviation of this normal distribution function
decreases as the number of iterations of the algorithm
increases [20]

The BB-BC approach takes the following steps:

241
 2012 IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon), 2-5 December 2012, Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia

TABLE I. Best control variables settings for IEEE 30 bus

Step 1: Form initial particles in random manner system
Step 2: By running Newton-Raphson power flow, calculate Control variables BB-BC PSO
the fitness values of the candidate solutions 1.06 1.06
Step 3: Find the center of the mass according to (18). Best
fitness individual can be chosen as the center of mass. 0.9510 0.976
Step 4: According to (19) calculate new candidates around 0.9911 0.9975
the center of the mass. 0.9717 0.9834
Step 5: Until stopping criterion is met, return to step 2.
0.9767 0.9824
VI. SIMULATION RESULT
0.9515 0.9833
BB-BC algorithm has been implemented to on IEEE 30 - 0.3 0.2
bus and 118- bus test systems. These systems are optimized 0 0.1
using the optimal reactive power dispatch method for two 0 0
states, the first is under base load condition for 125 % load
level and the second one is under contingency states. 0 0
Simulation performed in MATLAB-7 and executed on a 2.53 0 0
1)
GHz with 4 GB RAM. 0.94375 0.94375
0.93125 0.9625
A. IEEE 30-bus test system
0.9375 0.95625
The IEEE 30-bus network used in this study consists of 6 0.90625 0.91225
generators, 24 load buses and 41 transmission lines of which 4
branches (i.e., 6-9, 6,10, 4,12, and 28-27) are with tap setting 0.1326 0.1389
transformers. The system data of this power system are
available in [21]. Tap settings are in the range of [0.9, 1.1] in
Simulation 79.6 94.2
32 steps (0.0006) p.u. for each step. The reactive time(s)
compensation devices are considered within the interval [0, Iteration 63 91
50] Mvar in 5 steps (0.1) p.u for each step. Also the voltages number
of all bus buses except the slack bus are limited to [0.9, 1.1]
p.u. The slack bus bar voltage is fixed to its specified value of
1.06 p.u. For the proposed algorithm, a population of 30 TableII.    Comparison  among  different  methods  for  IEEE  30-­‐  bus  
individuals is used for all the examples. Also, maximum system  (Line  outage(  28-­‐27)  (125%  loaded  condition))  
iteration number is set to 100. The value of the constants , Maximum L-index
and are set to 1.0, 0.95 and 0.68, respectively . The base Before optimization After optimization
power value is 100 MW. First for the 125 % load level L-
Methods
index is calculated for all the PQ buses. In this case, the
objective is to minimize the maximum value of L-index that is
calculated to be . Hence 5 load buses with BB-BC 0.3601 0.  90
0.5829 0.767
higher value of L-index are chosen as reactive power supply PSO 0.3615 0.922
( ). The optimum settings of the control
variables for this purpose as obtained from the different
method are given in Table I. It is clear from Table I that the
maximum value of L-index achieved using BB-BC is 0.1326 Table  III:  Comparison  among  different  methods  for  IEEE  30-­‐bus  
which is less in comparison to PSO. From Tables I, it is clear system  (Line  outage  (27-­‐30)(125%  loaded  condition))  
that the BB-BC approach is also efficient as far as Maximum L-index
computational time is concerned. Time requirements as well Before optimization After optimization
as iteration number are much less than PSO. To investigate
Methods
the system under disturbance, contingency analysis was
conducted at 1.25 times the base load condition. From the
contingency analysis, the most severe case are found for line
BB-BC 0.2205 0.984
0.3227 0.890
outages (28-27) and (27-30). For these optimal values of PSO 0.2245 0.990
control variables Table II and Table III show the system
performance before and after the application of BB-BC and
PSO technique when line (28-27) and (27-30) were removed.

242
 2012 IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon), 2-5 December 2012, Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia

problems. Another advantage is that the computational time   as  

Using these tables, it is found that the value of decreases
and voltage stability has improved after the application of the
algorithm. The voltage profile of the system before and after
the application of the BB-BC algorithm under contingency
(28-27) is displayed in Fig. 1. As it is seen in this figure the
voltage profile is improved.
well   as   iteration   number is reduced. Again a network
contingency is considered in this system. From the
contingency analysis, line outages (34-43) and (45-46) are
found to be the most severe cases. As indicated in Table VI
and Table VII, by using proposed algorithm improvement in
voltage stability was achieved and the maximum L-index
value is decreased.

Table  V.  Comparison among different methods for an IEEE 118-bus system
after 50 trials (Maximum L-index)  
Methods Max. Min. Average Simulations Iteration
time, s number
1.2
Before optimization BB-BC 0.0998   0.0592   0.0616   580.4 64
After optimization
1.1
PSO 0.0946   0.0608   0.0620   602.7 92
Voltage Magnitude

0.9
Table  VI.  Comparison  among  different  methods  for  an  IEEE  118-­‐  
bus  system  (Line  outage  (34-­‐43)  (125%  loaded  condition))  
0.8
Maximum L-index
Before optimization After optimization
0.7
3 4 6 7 9 1012 1415 161718 1920 212223 2425 262728 2930
Methods
Load Bus NO
BB-BC 0.1800 0.934
Fig. 1. Voltage profile under line outage 28-27. 0.2446 0.914
PSO 0.1946 0.914

B. IEEE 118-Bus System

The system has 54 generators, 186 branches, nine

Table VII. Comparison among different methods for an IEEE 118- bus
transformers. The system detailed load and branch data are system (Line outage (45-46) (125% loaded condition))
given in [21]. The voltages of all load buses have been kept Maximum L-index
within 0.95-1.05 p.u. The upper and lower of tap and reactive Before optimization After optimization
power compensations are similar to the previous system. Methods
Firstly, the L-index of all load buses are calculated as stated in
the previous sections. Hence 19 load buses with higher BB-BC 0.1253 0.934
value (>.04) as shown in Table IV, are chosen as reactive 0.1726 0.916
power injected. By calculating L-index it is found that PSO 0.1328 0.916
.
Table IV. The selected load bus for reactive power injected
Table VIII gives the voltage magnitude and L-index values for
13 20 21 22 43
a selected list of buses for contingency (34-103) when BB-BC
Bus.no 44 45 51 52 53 algorithm is implemented. Improvement in voltage profile and
58 82 83 93 94 reduction in L-index values at the load buses are evident from
95 96 97 117 this result. The simulation results in the IEEE 118 bus system
demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed
Table V shows that the average and minimum value of the BB-BC method in minimizing maximum L-index.
objective function obtained from BB-BC technique is very
close to its minimum value. These trends in the results only
indicate the ability of these algorithms to reach either optimum
value or very close to it in each run. This is an indication of
robustness of these algorithms in solving these types of OPF

243
 2012 IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon), 2-5 December 2012, Kota Kinabalu Sabah, Malaysia

Table VIII. BB-BC methods for IEEE 118- bus system [4] Van Cutsem T, “A method to compute reactive power margins with
(Line outage( 34-43))(125% loaded condition) respect to voltage collapse,”IEEE Trans Power Syst 1991, vol. 6,pp.145-56.
[5] C. J. Parker, I. F. Morrison, and D. Sutanto, “Application of an
Before optimization After optimization optimization method for determining the reactive margin from voltage
collapsein reactive power planning,” IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 11, pp.
Bus.no L-index Voltage L- index Voltage
1473-1481, Aug. 1996.
magnitude magnitude
[6] Rajagopalan C, Lesieutre B, Sauer PW, Pai MA, “Dynamic aspects of
21 0.0581 0.9457 0.0514 0.9998 voltage/ power characteristics. IEEE Trans Power Syst 1992, vol.7, pp.990-
43 0.2447 0.9140 0.1800 1.0133 1000.
[7] Nanba M, Huang Y, Kai T, Wamoto SI, “Studies on VIPI based control
44 0.1639 0.9473 0.1190 0.9940 methods for improving voltage stability. Int J Electr Power Energy Syst
45 0.1102 0.9631 0.0818 0.9895 1998,vol.20, pp.141-146.
[8] Kessel P, Glavitsch H, “Estimating the voltage stability of power
51 0.0451 0.9591 0.0399 0.9922 systems,” IEEE Trans Power Syst 1986,v ol.1, pp.346-354.
53 0.0414 0.9689 0.0393 0.9975 [9] Tiranuchit A, Thomas RJ, “A posturing strategy against voltage instability
82 in electric power systems,”IEEE Trans Power Syst 1988, vol.3, pp.87-93.
0.0569 0.9805 0.0463 1.0007 [10] Bansilal A, Thukaram D, Parthasarathy K, “Optimal reactive power
93 0.0319 0.9820 0.0261 0.9995 dispatch algorithm for voltage stability improvement ,”Int J Electr Power
94 0.0434 0.9844 0.0340 1.003 Energy Syst 1996;.vol.18,pp.461-468.
[11] Thukaram D, Parthasarathy K, Khincha HP, Udupu Narendranath,
95 0.0678 0.9710 0.0520 0.9964 Bansilal A, “Voltage stability improvement: case studies of Indian power
networks,” Electr Power Syst Res 1998.vol.44,pp.35-44.
[12] Raghunatha R, Ramanujam R, Parthasarathy K, Thukaram D, “ Optimal
static voltage stability improvement using a numerically stable SLP algorithm
for real time applications,” Int J Electr Power Energy Syst
I. CONCLUSIONS 1999,vol.21,pp.289-297.
[13] Iba K , “Reactive Power Optimization by Genetic Algorithms’, IEEE
In this paper, the BB-BC algorithm is proposed to solve Trans on Power Systems, Vol.9, No.2, pp.685- 692, May1994,.
ORPF problems. BB-BC relying on the Big Bang and Big [14]Kennedy J, Eberhart R, Shi Y, “ Swarm Intelligence,” Morgan Kaufmann
Crunch theory of the evolution of the universe is implemented Publishers; 2001.
[15] Wu Q.H. and Ma J. T, “Power System Optimal Reactive Power Dispatch
to solve the optimization problems. The simulation results on Using Evolutionary Programming,”IEEE Trans on power system,
IEEE 30- bus and IEEE 118- bus test systems show that the ,Vol.10.No.3, pp.1243- 1249, Aug 1995.
proposed algorithm is efficient for voltage stability [16] Bhagwan Das, Patvardhan C., “A New Hybrid Evolutionary Strategy for
improvement in the normal and contingency states. The Reactive Power Dispatch,”Electric Power Research, Vol.65. pp. 83-90, May
2003.
comparison of numerical results of optimal reactive power [17]1K.Vaisakh, 2P.Kanta Rao , “Differential Evolution
flow (ORPF) problems effects using the BB-BC method with Based Optimal reactive power dispatch for voltage stability Enhansment,”
the results obtained by PSO, demonstrates the excellent JATIT, 2005.
performance of BB-BC in finding better quality solution and [18] D. Devaraj a, J. Preetha Roselyn ,“Genetic algorithm based reactive
power dispatch for voltage stability improvement ”,,vol.35,pp.1151-115,
fast convergence rate of the studied algorithm. December 2010.
[19]Erol OK, Eksin I, “New optimization method: Big Bang-Big Crunch,
REFERENCES Advances in Engineering Softwar,”,vol. 37, pp.106-111, February 2006.
[1] Gao B, Morisan GK, Kundur P, “ Voltage stability evaluation using modal [20] A. Kaveha, S. Talataharib, “Size optimization of space trusses using Big
analysis,”IEEE Trans Power Syst 1992,vol.7,pp.1529-42. Bang-Big Crunch algorithm,” Elsevier, Computers and Structures ,vol.87 , pp.
[2] P. Kundur, “ Power System Stability and Control,” New York: McGraw- 1129-1140, September 2009.
Hill, 1994 [21] ‘Power system test case archive’, available at: http://
[3] Kamalasadan S, Thukaram D, Srivastava AK, “A new intelligent www.ee.washington.edu/research/pstca/
algorithm for online voltage stability assessment and monitoring,”Int J Electr
Power Energy Syst 2009, vol.31, pp. 100-110.

244