Abstract: This study presents an efficient and reliable evolutionary-based approach, termed as Flower Pollination Algorithm (FPA), to solve the optimal reactive power dispatch (ORPD) problem of power system. The performance of the proposed FPA is examined and tested, successfully, on standard IEEE-30 test power systems for the solution of ORPD problem in which control of bus voltages, tap position of transformers and reactive power sources are involved. The objective function considered is either minimisation of active power transmission loss or that of total voltage deviation or enhancement of voltage stability index. The results offered by the proposed FPA are compared with those offered by other evolutionary optimisation techniques surfaced in the recent state-of-the-art literature. Simulation results indicate that the proposed FPA yields superior solution over the other recently surfaced popular techniques in terms of effectiveness and convergence speed.

Keywords: Reactive Power Dispatch, Flower Pollination Algorithm, Loss minimization.