New optimal placement of capacitors and dispersed generators using bacterial foraging oriented by particle swarm optimization algorithm in distribution systems

Abstract

The shunt capacitor devices are utilized in distribution systems to possibly reduce reactive component of power losses. Besides, the dispersed generator (DG) units can be used to supply active power of loads and reduce active component of power losses. In this paper, by applying the multi-objective problem, optimal placements of these devices are determined based on bacterial foraging (BF) oriented by particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm (BF-PSO). The considered objective function includes the cost reduction of power losses and installation costs of shunt capacitor devices and DG units. Also, the problem solution at different load levels and the utilization of capacitor discrete values are performed for optimization. Finally, the proposed method is compared with genetic algorithm (GA), differential evolution (DE), and PSO methods. They are investigated on the IEEE 69-bus distribution system. The simulation results indicate the advantages of the proposed method for the optimization problem. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.