An intelligent placement of distributed capacitance based on loss minimization

Distributed Capacitance (DC) is an electric reactive power source connected directly to the distribution network or on the customer site of the meter. It is related with the use of small capacity units installed in strategic points of electric distribution system and mainly close to the load centres. An optimal placement of DC can minimize the losses in the system, improve voltage profiles and increase load factors of distribution system. This paper proposes an accurate method for optimal allocation of DC in the distribution systems based on intelligent technique namely particle swarm optimization (PSO). The system loss of electrical network is used as an indicator to evaluate the impact of DC location on system reliability and voltage profile. To demonstrate the global optimization power of the presented techniques, the IEEE 30-bus test system has been used in this study to evaluate the proper location of the DC in the electrical network. The results illustrate a high reduction of system losses when DC is located at the proper location with suitable size compared with the system loss at the base case.