Abstract: A voltage profile at load busses can be kept with appropriate limits by adequate reactive power support. Reactive power also plays a key role in supporting the real power flow to maintain voltage stability and system reliability. It is difficult for transmission system operator to minimize the cost associated with optimal reactive power dispatch along with technical constraint. In recent years, several evolutionary computing based optimization techniques are proposed and practiced to solve various issues involved in optimal reactive power dispatch problem. The ORPD problem has been solved as a single objective as well as multi-objective optimization problem using various conventional techniques as well as recent techniques including genetic algorithm, artificial bee colony, particle swarm optimization and differential evolution etc. This paper is a attempt to understand various concept involved in reactive power dispatch and to present a different work carried out by the various researchers in this field by using evolutionary computing based techniques.

Keywords: Optimal reactive power dispatch, genetic algorithm, artificial bee colony, particle swarm optimization, differential evolutionary programming, evolutionary technique.