The Role of Nature-inspired Metaheuristic Algorithms for Optimal Voltage Regulation in Urban Smart Grids

This chapter presents a comparison study among the metaheuristic algorithms most used in the task of solving complex smart grid optimization problems. To this aim, the optimal voltage regulation problem has been considered as a benchmark to test the accuracy, the convergence proprieties and the robustness of the metaheuristic algorithms. The implementation of a smart grid can be realized in different steps. The first step is the local control of the distributed generators. The second step concerns the problems relating to the voltage regulation. The chapter analyzes the effectiveness of the described metaheuristic algorithms in the task of solving the optimal voltage regulation problem on realistic power networks. The considered case studies include both IEEE test power systems, which have been considered in order to compare the performance of the optimization algorithms in standard operation scenario, and a real urban smart grid located in the south of Italy. © ISTE Ltd 2017. All rights reserved.