Application of simulated annealing and genetic algorithm for solving optimum power flow problems

Well established conventional algorithms are available for solving the optimum power flow (OPF) problem. But the recent trend is to use the tools such as genetic algorithms (GAs) evolutionary programming technique, etc., because of some of their superior qualities. Simulated annealing (SA) is one such tool which can be used for solving optimisation problems. In this paper, SA technique has been applied for solving OPF problem which is simultaneously composed by economic dispatch (ED) and load flow problems (LFP). This technique is compared with GA, which represents a class of general purpose stochastic search techniques which simulate natural inheritance by genetics, illustrated by considering a three bus system.