An Intelligent Voltage Control With Power Loss Model Integration in Active Distribution Network

Abstract

The increasing integration of renewable energy sources (RESs), particularly distributed PV systems, poses significant challenges to voltage stability in modern distribution systems. Existing studies use reactive power control to address voltage deviations but incur high losses, with no systematic solution achieving both voltage regulation and loss minimization. This paper proposes a novel voltage control strategy based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL), leveraging decentralized agent coordination to maintain voltage levels while minimizing PV inverter and system losses. Also, a new framework is formulated based on a Markov game, wherein each PV inverter operates as an autonomous agent that adjusts its reactive power output via a centralized training process. The agents, defined as PV inverters, employ the multi-agent twin-delayed deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm to collaboratively minimize voltage deviations. Through the use of local observations and shared global information during training, agents learn robust control policies that generalize to varying conditions and enable decentralized execution without ongoing coordination. Performance of the proposed control strategy is validated on a modified IEEE 33-node distribution system under high variability in PV generation and load demand. Results show that the proposed control strategy significantly improves voltage regulation and reduces power losses compared to state-of-the-art MADRL techniques.