Simultaneous placement and sizing of renewable DGs and capacitor banks in distribution network

Competitive electricity market and ever increasing load demand create new challenges for the utilities to supply reliable and quality power to the customers. Suitable reinforcement of distributed generation (DG) and capacitor banks in distribution network can achieve the goal. This paper proposes a novel methodology for simultaneous placement and sizing of multiple renewable DG units and capacitor banks in distribution network considering reliability, voltage stability and economic criteria. The proposed method utilizes constrained discrete particle swarm optimization technique to select optimal locations and sizes of PV array and wind turbines along with capacitor banks. The validation of the methodology is demonstrated on an Indian rural distribution network. Simulation results show that proposed method is more effective than existing technique for planning of renewable DGs and capacitors in distribution network.