Solving Multi-Objective Voltage Stability Constrained Power Transfer Capability Problem using Evolutionary Computation

Competitive market forces and the ever-growing load demand are two of the key issues that cause power systems to operate closer to their system stability boundaries. Open access has since introduced competition and therefore promotes inter-regional electrical power trades. However, the economic flows of electrical energy between interconnected regions are usually constrained by system physical limits, e.g. transmission lines capacity and generation active/reactive power capability etc. As such, there is a limitation to the capacity of electrical power that regions can export or import. This maximum allowable electrical power transfer is normally referred to as Total Transfer Capability (TTC). It is critical to understand that TTC does not necessarily represent a safe and reliable amount of inter-regional power transfer as one or more operational limits are usually binding when quantifying TTC. Hence, it is of interest that power system stability issues are being considered during power transfer capability assessment in order to provide a more appropriate and secure power transfer level. The aim of this paper is to formulate an Optimal Power Flow (OPF) algorithm, which is capable of evaluating inter-area power transfer capability considering mathematically-complex voltage collapse margins. Through a multi-objective optimization setup, the proposed OPF-based approach can reveal the nonlinear relationships, i.e. the pareto-optimal front, between transfer capability and voltage stability margins. The feasibility of this approach has been intensively tested on a 3-machine 9-bus and the IEEE 118-bus systems.