DefinePK

Abstract

The optimum allocation of capacitor banks and Distributed Generation (DG) units are one of the challenges of power network planner and operators in transmission and distribution levels. Capacitors and DG are compensators that can help to power network to reduce the total power losses and improve the voltage profile, but non-optimal allocation of compensators can lead to inverse power flow. This can be caused to raise the voltage at busses out of the statutory limits as well as increasing the system losses due to reverse power flow. The capacitors in power system are generally utilized to supply real reactive power for reducing real power, then as the results improving the voltage profile. Therefore, the appropriate placement and sizing of capacitors are essential to ensure that system can mitigate power loss and improve the voltage profile with respect to all the technical constraints and limits which takes into account as penalty factor and added the objective function of optimum allocation of DG and capacitors. To minimize the obtained objective function, this paper hasutilized Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique to find the optimum location and the size of the units to ensure that can achieve minimum power losses and bets voltage profile. The OpenDSS engine is utilized for performing power flow calculation in an iterative manner for PSO algorithm. The IEEE 14 bus system has been used as a case study in this paper for executing the proposed method and finding the optimum solution for DG and capacitor allocation. The results of this paper show that proposed method was successful to achieve the target of the objective function and allocate the DG and capacitors into the best optimum location with appropriate size. This paper highlighted that how the existing power network can be improved to be functional in future long-term load growth without the huge investments of the network reinforcement. The results show that by allocating the DG units and capacitors the existing network can supply the good power quality to the end receiving buses, even with a better voltage profile and less total power losses in the overall network.