Optimal planning of distribution system harmonics

Reactive power compensation; voltage control and harmonic suppression are important power quality issues in nonsinusoidal distribution systems. A procedure is developed for the selection of filters on distribution feeders that have distributed variable harmonic sources and variable loads and compensating capacitors using most-fit analysis. The objective is to minimize the destructive effect of harmonics over a wide range of load conditions and capacitor settings. The genetic optimization algorithm is used to find the worst voltage harmonic distortion resulting from each filter selection. An example feeder is analyzed to display the advantage of the most-fit approach over conventional fixed load analysis.