A Binary Particle Swarm Optimization for Optimal Placement and Sizing of Capacitor Banks in Radial Distribution Feeders with Distorted Substation Voltages

Abstract

This paper proposes a binary particle swarm optimization (PSO) for optimal placement andsizing of fixed capacitor banks in radial distribution lines with nonsinusoidal substationvoltages. The objective function includes the cost of power losses and capacitor banks withconstraints which include limits on voltage, total harmonic distortion (THD) and sizes ofinstalled capacitors. A binary PSO applied to a test system and solutions of the binary PSOare compared with those of heuristic numerical algorithm that is based on the method of localvariations. Computer simulation shows that the harmonic components affect the optimalcapacitor placement and sizing.