A Comparison of Performance of GA, PSO and Differential Evolution Algorithms for Dynamic Phase Reconfiguration Technology of a Smart Grid

Increasing penetration of Distributed Generations (Photovoltaic solar energy (PV), Wind energy, and Battery Energy Storage) and PEVs (Plug-in Electric Vehicles) into smart grid induce network imbalance which reduces power quality. The uncertainty of demand-generation requires balancing for mitigating network imbalance. Several researchers have used various optimization methods for mitigating unbalance. Moreover, a few researchers have done comparative studies of optimization methods for mitigating unbalance till now. This paper proposes a method to mitigate unbalance and reduce the total power loss by optimizing load distribution among phases. This paper compares the performance of Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Differential Evolution (DE) algorithms on the application of phase balancing. Finally, the efficacy of these algorithms are evaluated for the proposed unbalance mitigation technique, and it is found that the proposed technique using DE algorithm can reduce a significant amount of unbalance at all the buses of the distribution grid with less computational effort.