Optimal Placement and Sizing of Capacitors in Radial Distribution Systems: A Two-Stage Method
Sunday Adeleke Salimon *
Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria.
Abiodun Aderemi Baruwa
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Osun State College of Technology, Esa-Oke, Nigeria.
Saheed Oluwasina Amuda
Department of Technical Education, Emmannuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo, Nigeria.
Hafiz Adesupo Adeleke
Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department, Air Force Institute of Technology, Kaduna, Nigeria.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Optimal allocation of shunt capacitors in the radial distribution networks results in both technical and economic benefits. This paper presents a two-stage method of Loss Sensitivity Factor (LSF) and Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CSA) to find the optimal size and location of shunt capacitors with the objective of minimizing cost due to power loss and reactive power compensation of the distribution networks.
The first stage utilizes the LSF to predict the potential candidate buses for shunt capacitor placement thereby reducing the search space of the second stage and avoiding unnecessary repetitive load flow while the second stage uses the CSA to find the size and actual placement of the shunt capacitors satisfying the operating constraints.
The applicability of the proposed two stage method is tested on the standard IEEE 33-bus and Ayepe 34-bus Nigerian radial distribution networks of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company. After running the algorithm, the simulation results gave percentage real and reactive power loss reduction of 34.28% and 28.94% as compared to the base case for the IEEE 33-bus system while the percentage real and reactive power loss reduction of 22.89% and 21.40% was recorded for the Ayepe 34-bus system.
Comparison of the obtained results with other techniques in literatures for the standardized IEEE 33-bus reveals the efficiency of the proposed method as it achieved technical benefits of reduced total power loss, improved voltage profile and bus voltage stability, and the economic benefit of reduced total cost due to electrical power loss and compensation.
Keywords: Radial distribution system, power loss reduction, voltage profile, voltage stability index, loss sensitivity factors, cuckoo search algorithm.