Exploring Evolutionary Algorithms for Optimal Power Flow: A Comprehensive Review and Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. The contribution paragraphs in the end of Intro section require correction. What does it mean ACOPF? There are some inacurate in spelling/grammar word combinations (extends to various several constraints, This comprehensive review paper addresses challenges several OPF issues... etc). My suggestion is to rewrite this statements in more clear way.

2. Please correct Figure.1. Overview of all the objectives of OPF problem - there are 2 blocks of "Voltage Profile" which are duplicated.

3. The authors provide mathematical section to describe the OPF problem formulation, however there are some confusions regarding the shown analytical equations. It should clearly stated which of them proposed by authors, or alternatively the proper references should be added.

4. Figure. 2. Various algorithms applied to solve the OPF problems, which is rather important, is shown in non-optimal way. The central elements have larger fonts and therefore it is not enough space to show all the outer parts with normally visible fonts. I suggest to redraw this figure in more readers-friendly way.

5. The Table 1 actually placed occupying 6 pages and sometimes is difficult to follow. Please consider its placement in some more compact way, e.g. with smaller fonts, in the form of diagrams and/or several tables etc.

6. Most part of the section 3 is written in rather complicated way. A large paragraphs with lot of text are difficult to follow and get the main thought from each of them. I suggest to rewrite this part trying to be concise and to focus on one single statement in each paragraph.  

7. The reference list incorporate publications from rather wide time range over five decades, however there are few papers published within previous five years. It means the this latest time interval was a bit out of focus. This issue could be improved in my opinion. Also, please double check and correct the reference list formatting (it doesn't meet the journal requirements at the moment).

8. In general, this work should be re-organized in order to be more attractive for readers. I suggest authors to use a bit more visual content (diagrams, sketches, shemes, tables) and avoid using of long paragraphs with many thoughts mixed. Also, it is suggested to state more clear in Conclusion the main scientific contributions of this review to the field.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are some incorrect sentences and typos mentioned in above remarks.

Author Response

Dear Editor,

First of all, the authors would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments on our research paper titled “Exploring Evolutionary Algorithms for Optimal Power Flow: A Comprehensive Review and Analysis” to further improve the quality of this article. Now, we have worked on all the comments raised by the reviewers and incorporated all the suggestions in the manuscript. The modifications have been shown in red color in the revised manuscript. The complete response to the comments suggested by the reviewers is as follows:

 

Reviewer 1

Comment 1. The contribution paragraphs in the end of Intro section require correction. What does it mean ACOPF? There are some inaccurate in spelling/grammar word combinations (extends to various several constraints, this comprehensive review paper addresses challenges several OPF issues... etc). My suggestion is to rewrite these statements in more clear way.

Response: As per the suggestion AC OPF acronym has been explained in the revised paper. At line number 83. The above said paragraphs also remodified and explained in more clear way at line 84.

Comment 2. Please correct Figure.1. Overview of all the objectives of OPF problem - there are 2 blocks of "Voltage Profile" which are duplicated.

Response: Thank for your suggestion, The Fig. 1. has been corrected and given 66 lines.

Comment 3. The authors provide mathematical section to describe the OPF problem formulation, however there are some confusions regarding the shown analytical equations. It should clearly stated which of them proposed by authors, or alternatively the proper references should be added.

Response: As per the suggestion the proper references has been added to all the equations.

Comment 4. Figure. 2. Various algorithms applied to solve the OPF problems, which is rather important, is shown in non-optimal way. The central elements have larger fonts and therefore it is not enough space to show all the outer parts with normally visible fonts. I suggest to redraw this figure in more readers-friendly way.

Response: As per the suggestion the Fig 2. has been modified and given 190 line.

Comment 5. The Table 1 actually placed occupying 6 pages and sometimes is difficult to follow. Please consider its placement in some more compact way, e.g. with smaller fonts, in the form of diagrams and/or several tables etc.

Response: As per the suggestion, Table 1 has been modified and now it came in to 1 and half page only and modified Table given at 191 line.

Comment 6. Most part of the section 3 is written in rather complicated way. A large paragraph with lot of text is difficult to follow and get the main thought from each of them. I suggest to rewrite this part trying to be concise and to focus on one single statement in each paragraph.  

Response: Thank you for your suggestion, the section 3 has been separated into small paragraphs based on the algorithms.

Comment 7. The reference list incorporate publications from rather wide time range over five decades, however there are few papers published within previous five years. It means this latest time interval was a bit out of focus. This issue could be improved in my opinion. Also, please double check and correct the reference list formatting (it doesn't meet the journal requirements at the moment).

Response: As per the suggestion, the latest references [111 to 117] related to optimal power problems has been added in the revised paper at 628 line and references format has been verified and updated.  

Comment 8. In general, this work should be reorganized in order to be more attractive for readers. I suggest authors to use a bit more visual content (diagrams, sketches, shemes, tables) and avoid using of long paragraphs with many thoughts mixed. Also, it is suggested to state more clear in Conclusion the main scientific contributions of this review to the field.

Response: As per the reviewer suggestion, the large paraphrase has been modified into small paragraphs and easy to understandable to readers and some of the scientific contributions in the OPF field has been added in the conclusion section.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

your work is well done and comprehensive. However, you must consider my comments in the attached file.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editor,

First of all, the authors would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments on our research paper titled “Exploring Evolutionary Algorithms for Optimal Power Flow: A Comprehensive Review and Analysis” to further improve the quality of this article. Now, we have worked on all the comments raised by the reviewers and incorporated all the suggestions in the manuscript. The modifications have been shown in red color in the revised manuscript. The complete response to the comments suggested by the reviewers is as follows:

 

Reviewer 2

Comment 1. The abstract isn't informative and should be revised so that it should contain some key findings of the work

Response: As per the suggestion abstract has been modified.

Comment 1. The part of renewable energy sources integration should be highlighted in introduction, by adding a paragraph of the growth of penetration of RE in the grids, " In the end of 2023, the global installed capacities of renewables such as solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, marine, biogas, etc reached about 3,372 GW. The global renewable energy market is expected to continue its upward growth over the next years by a rate of 4.22%. This growth in the RE market reflects a global shift towards renewable and sustainable energy technologies. China and the United States lead the global PV market, with 760 and 265 GW of installed RE capacity, respectively. The installed capacity in Africa amounted to approximately 221 GW. Most of them were hydropower plants, PV solar plants and biomass energy.

Response: AS per the reviewer suggestion the above said paragraph has been added in the line 517. 

Comment 3. The same thing for air emissions: as Fossil fuels for electricity generation is causing of 35.29 % of all pollutants’ emissions that responsible of climate change and global warming.

Response: As per the suggestion, the above said statement has been added in the 512 line.

Comment 4. Add some works related to the role of renewables in sustainable electricity generation:

Response: As per the suggestion, the suggested research papers related to renewables and sustainable electricity has been added in the revised manuscript.  At 628 lines

- Assessing Random Power Flow for Vehicle-to-Grid Operation Based on Monte Carlo Simulation;

- Photovoltaic Solar Energy for Street Lighting: A Case Study at Kuwaiti Roundabout, Gaza Strip, Palestine;

- Power Management Strategy and Sizing Optimization Techniques for Hybrid Energy Systems     Considering Feature Selection: Mini Review:

Comment: As per the suggestion, the above said papers has been included in the revised manuscript at

Comment 5: Fig.2 is difficult to read

Response: Fig. 2. Has been modified in the revised manuscript .

Comment 6. Table 1 very large; I suggest authors to move it to appendix

Response: As per the reviewer suggestion, the size of the Table 1 is reduced to one and half page and give in the at 191 line.  

Comment 7. How can Equation 9 represent pollution? Where are the sources of pollution and the pollution factor in the equation?

Response: in Eq. 9 P_Gk indicates the power produced by the thermal power plant generator. That the is source for pollution,  denotes the pollution factors in the equations.

Comment 8.  Eq. (13) is not more used for the power generated by wind turbine.

Response: As per the suggestion, the wind power generated by turbine equation has been modified and in the given at equation 19 at 562 line.

Comment 9. The same thing for solar energy. Eq. 21 is not correct.

Response: As per the suggestion, the solar power generated equation has been modified and in the given at equations 21 & 22. At line 567.

Hafez, A.A., Nassar, Y.F., Hammdan, M.I. et al. Technical and Economic Feasibility of Utility-Scale Solar Energy Conversion Systems in Saudi Arabia. Iran J Sci Technol Trans Electr Eng 44, 213–225 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40998-019-00233-3

Comment 10. Also authors should provide full technical characteristics of PV modules and wind turbine used in the research. Please see:

Response: The equations related to wind and solar are included in the revised manuscript at equation 19.

Comment 11. Please provide a subsection in the methodology section including: Assumptions, Limitations and Uncertainties of the research.

Response: As per the suggestion, the assumptions, limitations, and uncertainties are included in the revised manuscript at 528 line.

Comment 12. Where are the results? Authors should apply the theory on a case study! Otherwise this is not a scientific research; it is a lecture in a scholar course

Response: The aim of the current paper is show that, different objective functions related to OPF, what the different algorithms so far applied to solve the OPF problems. We have not included any results in the current research paper.

Comment 13. How authors prove the validation of this theory?

Response: The authors have provided citations every statement in the manuscript.

Comment 14: Lack of Economic and Environmental analysis!

Response: As per the suggestion, the economic and environmental analysis has been added in the revised manuscript at 646 line.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article contains an overview of issues related to optimal power flow in the power system. The authors presented their own division of optimization tasks and methods used to solve them.

• The structure of the manuscript is correct: 1) Introduction to the research topic; 2) Mathematical description of selected optimization tasks; 3) Algorithms used to solve OPF type tasks with the division of issues into single-criterion and multi-criterion; 4) Summary and conclusions.

There is no point where the authors would present their own thoughts on the articles found in the literature, on the issues and methods discussed in them, on the topic of potential research gaps.

• The abstract is formulated correctly, contains a short description of the research topic. The keywords are appropriately selected. I have a reservation about one keyword: why did the authors specify only "Wind power integration"? There are more RES sources, e.g. photovoltaic sources, which are starting to dominate, biogas, etc. Instead of the keyword "Wind power integration", one could write about RES in general.

• The reviewed article is a review article. Such articles are also necessary and valuable. However, they must have an exhaustive review of the literature. In my opinion, the literature review should include more articles from recent years, e.g. the last 5 years. I mean especially those articles that concern specific objective functions, non-standard objective functions, so-called SOPF (Special Optimal Power Flow) tasks. Network operators sometimes require specific assumptions or meeting specific constraints. These may be, for example, tasks related to optimal network reconfiguration, optimal redispatching of RES power, optimal location of devices (e.g. energy storage, capacitor banks, reactors), etc.

• Generally speaking, the literature studies are correctly designed but for typical optimization tasks. The authors should describe more non-standard, non-standard objective functions and methods:

o The description of the issues should be supplemented with tasks related to contemporary problems, e.g. related to the operation of various RESs that are connected to networks with different voltage levels (high voltage network, medium voltage network, low voltage network). In networks with different voltage levels, various problems appear that are specific to a given network, for networks with a specific voltage level and structure (e.g. a radial network and a network that has a closed structure - the problems in a radial network and a network with a mesh structure are different).

o Other selected ones, e.g. methods based on artificial intelligence, should also be mentioned. These methods are increasingly used to optimize the operation of the power network.

• The authors reviewed OPF tasks and methods that allow them to be solved. However, certain features are missing that would indicate the originality of the article. In my opinion, the authors should also indicate which tasks are solved most often and which methods are used most often. This can be presented, for example, using graphs that illustrate it. The frequency of occurrence of a given task and method in the literature should be sorted. The review article should include some of the authors' own contribution in the form of, for example, their own visualization of the topics of articles found in the literature, as well as their own thoughts and tips. Research gaps should also be indicated, which constitute a potential area of ​​research in the future.

• Generally speaking, the equations and figures are correct. Figure no. 1 can be supplemented with special/specific objective functions. Figure no. 2 – if possible – the text font can be enlarged.

• Table 1 – if possible, the text in the table header should be slightly edited so that some words/designations are in one line, e.g. M3, M4, M5, M6, etc.

• The presented conclusions are consistent with the assumptions of the article. However, the summary should clearly indicate what research gaps there are, concerning both OPF tasks and methods. Why is the subject matter still worth further analysis? You can also add which methods are used most often and which OPF tasks dominate in the literature and which are the most current.

Author Response

Dear Editor,

First of all, the authors would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments on our research paper titled “Exploring Evolutionary Algorithms for Optimal Power Flow: A Comprehensive Review and Analysis” to further improve the quality of this article. Now, we have worked on all the comments raised by the reviewers and incorporated all the suggestions in the manuscript. The modifications have been shown in red color in the revised manuscript. The complete response to the comments suggested by the reviewers is as follows:

 

Reviewer 3

The article contains an overview of issues related to optimal power flow in the power system. The authors presented their own division of optimization tasks and methods used to solve them. • The structure of the manuscript is correct: 1) Introduction to the research topic; 2) Mathematical description of selected optimization tasks; 3) Algorithms used to solve OPF type tasks with the division of issues into single-criterion and multi-criterion; 4) Summary and conclusions.

Comment 1: There is no point where the authors would present their own thoughts on the articles found in the literature, on the issues and methods discussed in them, on the topic of potential research gaps.

Response: As per the suggestion, the research gaps have been identified and added in the revised manuscript at 670 line.

Comment 2: The abstract is formulated correctly, contains a short description of the research topic. The keywords are appropriately selected. I have a reservation about one keyword: why did the authors specify only "Wind power integration"? There are more RES sources, e.g. photovoltaic sources, which are starting to dominate, biogas, etc. Instead of the keyword "Wind power integration", one could write about RES in general.

Response: As per the suggestion, RES key word added in the revised manuscript at 25 line.

Comment 3: The reviewed article is a review article. Such articles are also necessary and valuable. However, they must have an exhaustive review of the literature. In my opinion, the literature review should include more articles from recent years, e.g. the last 5 years. I mean especially those articles that concern specific objective functions, non-standard objective functions, so-called SOPF (Special Optimal Power Flow) tasks. Network operators sometimes require specific assumptions or meeting specific constraints. These may be, for example, tasks related to optimal network reconfiguration, optimal redispatching of RES power, optimal location of devices (e.g. energy storage, capacitor banks, reactors), etc.

Response: As per the reviewer suggestion, the recent articles at [111 to 117] has been added in the revised manuscript at 629 line.

Comment 4: Generally speaking, the literature studies are correctly designed but for typical optimization tasks. The authors should describe more non-standard, non-standard objective functions and methods:

Response: as per the reviewer suggestion the non-standard objective functions has been included in the revised manuscript at equations 6 (140 line), 8 (146 line), 9 (152 line) and various artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and meta heuristics algorithm has been discussed.

Comment 5: The description of the issues should be supplemented with tasks related to contemporary problems, e.g. related to the operation of various RESs that are connected to networks with different voltage levels (high voltage network, medium voltage network, low voltage network). In networks with different voltage levels, various problems appear that are specific to a given network, for networks with a specific voltage level and structure (e.g. a radial network and a network that has a closed structure - the problems in a radial network and a network with a mesh structure are different).

Response: As per the reviewer suggestion the research paper related to the above said problem has been added in the revised manuscript at 669 line.

Comment 6: Other selected ones, e.g. methods based on artificial intelligence, should also be mentioned. These methods are increasingly used to optimize the operation of the power network.

Response: As per the reviewer suggestion the based on artificial intelligence [115, 116] has been added in the revised manuscript at 660.

Comment 7: The authors reviewed OPF tasks and methods that allow them to be solved. However, certain features are missing that would indicate the originality of the article. In my opinion, the authors should also indicate which tasks are solved most often and which methods are used most often. This can be presented, for example, using graphs that illustrate it. The frequency of occurrence of a given task and method in the literature should be sorted. The review article should include some of the authors' own contribution in the form of, for example, their own visualization of the topics of articles found in the literature, as well as their own thoughts and tips. Research gaps should also be indicated, which constitute a potential area of ​​research in the future.

Response: As per the reviewer suggestion research gaps have been added in the revised manuscript at 678 line.

Comment 8: Generally speaking, the equations and figures are correct. Figure no. 1 can be supplemented with special/specific objective functions. Figure no. 2 – if possible – the text font can be enlarged.

Response: As per the reviewer suggestion the figure 1 and 2 has been changed in the revised manuscript and given at 64 and 188 lines respectively.

Comment 9: Table 1 – if possible, the text in the table header should be slightly edited so that some words/designations are in one line, e.g. M3, M4, M5, M6, etc.

Response: As per the reviewer suggestion the Table 1 headings are kept in one line in the revised manuscript at 188 line.

Comment 10: The presented conclusions are consistent with the assumptions of the article. However, the summary should clearly indicate what research gaps there are, concerning both OPF tasks and methods. Why is the subject matter still worth further analysis? You can also add which methods are used most often and which OPF tasks dominate in the literature and which are the most current.

Response: As per the suggestion, conclusion section has been modified in the revised manuscript at 689 line.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Several improvements have been made to the article. It became more clear, attractive and also more concise in some parts. All the review remarks have been addressed in the revised version of the paper. In my opinion, the current level of the manuscript is good enough to be accepted for publication.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for your replies. I have one comment regarding table 1: items 116 and 117 are empty rows.