Abstract
In this article, an improved version of the electromagnetism-like mechanism is developed and proposed to find the optimal solution for the optimal power flow problem in a power system. To show the effectiveness of the developed method, it has been demonstrated on standard IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 57-bus test systems for seven different objectives that reflect fuel cost minimization with generators that may have either convex or non-convex fuel cost characteristics, voltage profile improvement, voltage stability enhancement, and active and reactive power transmission losses minimization. The results obtained using the improved version of the electromagnetism-like mechanism method are compared with those obtained using different methods reported in the literature. Considering the quality of these results, the proposed method is a quite promising alternative approach for solving optimal power flow problems.