Optimal Capacitor Placement in a Radial Distribution System using Shuffled Frog Leaping and Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithms

This paper presents a new and efficient approach for capacitor placement in radial distribution systems that determine the optimal locations and size of capacitor with an objective of improving the voltage profile and reduction of power loss. The solution methodology has two parts: in part one the loss sensitivity factors are used to select the candidate locations for the capacitor placement and in part two a new algorithm that employs Shuffle Frog Leaping Algorithm (SFLA) and Particle Swarm Optimization are used to estimate the optimal size of capacitors at the optimal buses determined in part one. The main advantage of the proposed method is that it does not require any external control parameters. The other advantage is that it handles the objective function and the constraints separately, avoiding the trouble to determine the barrier factors. The proposed method is applied to 45-bus radial distribution systems.