Multi-Objective Planning for Reactive Power Compensation of Radial Distribution Networks With Unified Power Quality Conditioner Allocation Using Particle Swarm Optimization

This paper presents a particle swarm optimization (PSO)-based multi-objective planning algorithm for reactive power compensation of radial distribution networks with unified power quality conditioner (UPQC) allocation. A UPQC consists of a series and a shunt inverter. The UPQC model based on phase angle control (UPQC-PAC) is used. In UPQC-PAC, the series inverter injects a voltage with controllable phase angle in such a way that the voltage magnitude at load end remains unchanged. Due to the phase angle shift, the series inverter participates in load reactive power compensation along with the shunt inverter during healthy operating condition. In the proposed approach, the optimal location, the optimal reactive power compensation required at the location, and the optimal design parameters of UPQC are determined by minimizing three objective functions: 1) the rating of UPQC, 2) network power loss, and 3) percentage of nodes with undervoltage problem. These objectives are simultaneously minimized to obtain a set of non-dominated solutions using multi-objective PSO (MOPSO). The performances of two MOPSO variants are compared and the better one is used in all subsequent studies. A load flow algorithm including the UPQC-PAC model is devised. The performance of the proposed algorithm is validated with different case studies.