Strategic capacitor placement in distribution systems by minimisation of harmonics amplification because of resonance

The capacitor placement problem (CPP) has been widely studied throughout the years. However, traditional methodologies either do not consider non-linear loads in the formulations or are highly dependent on the spectrum of the harmonic currents. Therefore the traditional methodologies have become unsuitable for distribution system planning studies. The proposed approach formulates the CPP as a multi-objective optimisation model while including economic and technical aspects in the minimisation process. An additional objective function introduces a quadratic minimisation of the voltage harmonic distortions produced by the harmonic currents drawn by non-linear loads according to the IEEE Std. 519-1992 limits. A new constraint based on a resonance index (RI) is also introduced as a form to extend the capacitors- lifetime. Furthermore, an aging model of capacitor dielectric insulation under a non-sinusoidal waveform scenario is used to estimate the expected real lifetime of capacitors. The proposed methodology was exhaustively tested on a 69-bus system and the results show that the methodology is adequate for planning capacitors and eliminates the need to focus in great detail on harmonic system data.