Optimization Algorithms in Smart Grids: A Systematic Literature Review

Electrical smart grids are units that supply electricity from power plants to the users to yield reduced costs, power failures/loss, and maximized energy management. Smart grids (SGs) are well-known devices due to their exceptional benefits such as bi-directional communication, stability, detection of power failures, and inter-connectivity with appliances for monitoring purposes. SGs are the outcome of different modern applications that are used for managing data and security, i.e., modeling, monitoring, optimization, and/or Artificial Intelligence. Hence, the importance of SGs as a research field is increasing with every passing year. This paper focuses on novel features and applications of smart grids in domestic and industrial sectors. Specifically, we focused on Genetic algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, and Grey Wolf Optimization to study the efforts made up till date for maximized energy management and cost minimization in SGs. Therefore, we collected 145 research works (2011 to 2022) in this systematic literature review. This research work aims to figure out different features and applications of SGs proposed in the last decade and investigate the trends in popularity of SGs for different regions of world. Our finding is that the most popular optimization algorithm being used by researchers to bring forward new solutions for energy management and cost effectiveness in SGs is Particle Swarm Optimization. We also provide a brief overview of objective functions and parameters used in the solutions for energy and cost effectiveness as well as discuss different open research challenges for future research works.