Optimal dual design based on capacitor placement and reconfiguration techniques for loss reduction and voltage enhancement

Abstract

Abstract Distribution System Reconfiguration (DSR) and Optimal Capacitor Placement (OCP) are the most economical and beneficial techniques that have been used in the Radial Distribution Systems (RDSs) to increase the reduction of losses and to perform a better voltage improvement. The DSR technique is a search process to find the shortest path length between the substation and the loads to achieve a maximum reduction in real losses. The OCP technique is used to compensate the reactive power that is required for the inductive loads, which reduces the active and reactive losses and enhances the voltage for the system buses. The approach of combining these techniques provides more improvement than using them individually. In this paper, four cases are implemented that employs either a single or double approach to identify the design with the best performance. The single approach is either DSR or OCP technique as individual technique, while the double approach is either OCP technique for the reconfigured RDS or reconfiguration for the RDS after the application of OCP technique. The optimal selection of tie switches, size and location of capacitors in the individual and dual approaches are achieved by using Qualified Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (QBPSO) and Modified Grey Wolf Optimization (MGWO) algorithms. The four cases are tested for standard IEEE system 33-bus RDS under different loading conditions. The results show the superior performance of the optimal proposed approaches compared to the literature works. Furthermore, the optimal dual techniques have show more effectiveness for loss reduction and voltage enhancement over their individual techniques.