Optimal capacitor placement size and location of shunt capacitor for reduction of losses on distribution feeders

The problem of choosing optimal location and sizes for shunt capacitor in distribution systems is addressed. The objective of the capacitor placement procedure is not only to minimize the power losses along distribution feeders, but also help in maintaining the voltage profile within acceptable limits. the amount of benefit that can be reaped by placing the capacitors depend mainly on how the capacitors are placed on the distribution system. This work propose a new method, based on evolutionary algorithms, capable of solving large network instances that appear in real-word settings. Our evolutionary approach makes use of a memetic algorithm that employs a hierarchical organization of the population in overlapping clusters. This structure leads to special selection and reproduction schemes, which improve the algorithms overall performance. This method was tested on a practical radial distribution network with 13 IEEE buses and the results have been presented.