In the present work, reactive power planning problem along with voltage stability margin is addressed by effective co-ordination of reactive power sources. Modal analysis and L-index methods are used to detect weak nodes of the system accordingly. Differential Evolution (DE) and Genetic Algorithm (GA)-based optimization techniques are applied for the proper co-ordination of Var sources under base and increased loading conditions maintaining voltage stability of the connected power network. The problem is multi-objective and IEEE 30 bus system is taken as the standard system. It is observed that modal analysis based detection of weak nodes are more effective than the L-index-based detection. Moreover, the DE-based optimization algorithm gives better result compared to GA-based approach in maximizing reactive power reserves.
