Optimal allocation of multiple DG units in radial distribution system using modified differential evolution technique

Integration of Distributed Generation (DG) units with the conventional radial distribution system provides several advantages. Reduction in power loss, improvement in voltage profile and increasing the reliability are the most important advantages which can be achieved by installing multiple DG units of optimal sizes at optimal locations in the distribution system. The main objective of this analysis is to minimize the total losses in the system. In the optimal allocation of DG units, the number of decisive variable parameters increases with increase in number of DG units and hence the chance of premature convergence of the objective function also increases. In this paper, a new modified differential evolution (MDE) technique is proposed to determine the optimal placement and size of multiple DG units to avoid the premature convergence. The proposed algorithm is applied on IEEE-33 bus radial distribution system to verify its effectiveness. The results obtained by the proposed method are also compared with other methods. It is found that the results obtained by the proposed algorithm are superior in terms of loss reduction and voltage profile improvement.