Impact of shunt capacitor penetration level in radial distribution system considering techno-economic benefits

Abstract

Shunt Capacitor (SC) integration in radial distribution networks is a method utilized to minimize power losses and huge voltage drops. In other to obtain these maximum benefits, they should be optimally allocated. To this effect, researchers have used various optimization methods for solving SC allocation problems but most have not considered how the penetration level of SC into the radial distribution system affects these benefits. The goal of the paper, therefore, is to determine the most sensitive buses to reactive compensation and investigate the effect of the penetration level of SC on the techno-economic benefits. Load flow was performed for the base case to determine the steady-state performance of the system and the most sensitive buses were selected using New Voltage Stability Index (NVSI) technique. The size of the SC was increased in step of these buses, in turn, to determine SC penetration level impact on the techno-economic benefits. The approach was implemented on IEEE 33-bus and practical Nigerian radial distribution networks. The results showed that appropriate penetration of SC on networks leads to reduction of power losses, voltage profile improvement as well cost reduction resulting in high net savings.