Transmission Network Expansion Planning Based On Improved Ant Colony Algorithm

Transmission network expansion planning with security is a complex nonlinear combinatorial optimization problem, which cannot be well solved by traditional optimization methods. Ant colony algorithm (ACA) is a highly efficient meta-heuristic method for quickly finding high quality solutions to combinatorial optimization problem. But, it is inclined to premature convergence problems. In this paper, the corresponding model is considered for the electrical network, and the way of selecting the increment of information in the ant colony algorithm is modified, which can not only reduce the computation complexity, but also ensure the global astringency to the solution for the transmission expansion planning with N-1 security constraints. The results of three examples show the excellent performance of the proposed methodology.