Optimal Planning of Distributed Generation and Capacitor Banks in Distribution Networks

For many years, the constantly rising electricity demands have led to a growing concern. A reduction in power loss, as well as improvement of voltage profiles would be the consequence of optimizing both the location and size of capacitor banks (CBs) and distributed generation (DGs). This can be obtained as a result of the improvement in both voltage stability index (VSI) and voltage magnitude deviations (VD). However, this process must be carried out carefully since the improper size and/or location of DGs may negatively impact the distribution networks. This research presents an optimization-based algorithm for optimal sizing and placement of DGs and CBs. For this purpose, the Jellyfish search algorithm (JS) is employed to solve the optimization model. To elucidate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm, different cases have been considered, starting with the CBs allocation only, the DGs allocation only, and then the allocation of both the CBs and DGs. While their active and reactive power capabilities are taken into consideration. Furthermore, a multi-objective optimization that considers the technical, economic, and emission objectives are also carried out. The results show that the JS delivers preferable results in terms of improving technical, economic, and emission objectives. Furthermore, the results indicate a superior operation when having a controllable power factor (pf) DGs. The calculations have been done for the IEEE-33 bus system using MATLAB software.