Power loss minimization and voltage profile improvement on electrical power distribution systems using optimal capacitor placement and sizing

Distribution system operators are having difficulties maintaining a correct voltage profile across its network. As the standard of living of its customers increases, suppressed loads tend to come up and this in turn would require and increased demand in power supply. The increase in power demand and high load density at distribution ends have been seen to have key consequences of increasing the power loss and reducing the voltage profile in power systems, which seriously jeopardizes the ability of radial distribution networks to faithfully account for the power received from transmission stations. This work is aimed at improving the power quality that gets to the end users. Shunt capacitors have been suggested to be a suitable solution to this problem as they supply the reactive power needed for compensation. As a result, the optimum placement and size of these shunt capacitors have received a great deal of attention. Despite its efficacy, meta-heuristic algorithms are seldom utilized in the Nigerian RDS (radial distribution system), since most published research instead uses analytical and numerical programming methods. As a result, this research explains how to use a Hybrid Solution (HS) of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO and GA) to identify and size shunt capacitors for real-time power loss reduction on an 11-kV distribution feeder. The backward-forward sweep load flow method with Loss Sensitivity Factor (LSF) is used to identify suitable buses for shunt capacitor installation, and the HS algorithm is then used to estimate the optimum size. This method was discovered to decrease the system's real power loss by 54.88% while raising the minimum bus voltage magnitude to the acceptable limit and thus improving the minimum system Voltage Stability Index (VSI). Based on these findings, the suggested technique is regarded as a viable way for placement and determining the size of shunt capacitors in a real-world Radial Distribution System. The numerical results shows that the approach has a high capability of improving the voltage profile of the distribution network, leading to an improved system power quality, minimize the system losses, correct the power factor, and maximize the net savings. The numerical results were gotten by using MATLAB package.