Acceleration Factor Optimization of Gauss-Seidel Numerical Analysis for Power Flow Using FA

Abstract

Load flow analysis is one of the essential ways used by electrical power engineers to achieve high system quality owing to the relevance of load flow in economic optimization, planning, and stability. This issue can be formulated as a set of nonlinear algebraic equations, which can be solved by iterative algorithms. Gauss-Seidel is one of the simple ways of determining load flow in a power system, with the acceleration factor being the most considerable modification when aiming at improving the accuracy of this method. This article reports the determination of the optimal acceleration factor using PSO and Firefly (FA) algorithms. The simulation was done in MATLAB using a 4-bus, 6-bus, and 9-bus of IEEE standard system for the determination of the optimal acceleration factor. The proposed methods were evaluated and benchmarked against the conventional value of the factor using the number of iterations as the fitness function. The outcome of the study showed the FA method as the most preferable method of identifying the optimum acceleration factor.