Optimal placement of capacitors in radial distribution using a GA-PSO method

This paper presents a genetic algorithm and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method for the placement of capacitors on the primary feeders of the radial distribution systems to reduce the power losses and to improve the voltage profile. A two-stage methodology is used for the optimal capacitor placement problem. In the first stage, genetic algorithm approach is used to find the optimal capacitor locations and in the second stage, Particle Swarm Optimization method is used to find the sizes of the capacitors. The proposed method is tested on 34-bus test systems and the results are presented.

: Genetic Algorithm (GA), capacitor placement, voltage profile, network losses, Swarm