A new fuzzy based solution of the capacitor placement problem in radial distribution system

A fuzzy based method has been proposed for identification of probable capacitor nodes of radial distribution system. Simulated annealing technique has been used for final selection of the capacitor sizes. New fuzzy membership functions have been formulated where the active power membership is an exponential function of the nodal per unit active power and branch active power loss, the reactive membership function is a function of nodal reactive power and reactive branch loss. Voltage membership has been formulated in two ways – as function of the node voltage only and also as function of the nodal voltage and reactive power as well. The method has been applied to different test systems. It has been found that the proposed membership functions are less dependent upon weighting factors. The weighting factor may even be avoided at all. The proposed method thus is more general a other fuzzy based capacitor placement methods. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.