Optimal Sizing and Siting of Distributed Generators for Minimization of Power Losses and Voltage Deviation

In this paper, an attempt is made to minimize power losses caused by improper siting of distributed generators (DGs). The integration of DGs to Debre Markos Feeder 3 is presented considering its optimal sizing and placement in the system. Grid based Multi-Objective Harmony Search Algorithm (GrMHSA) is used to choose the optimal size and location of the DGs. Total voltage deviation, active and reactive power loss on the feeder are the objective functions to be minimized considering voltage profile (VP) as constraint. A matlab program is developed to optimally size and locate the DG on the feeder resulting in lowest total voltage deviation, total active and reactive power loss. The system without DG is taken as a base case with the total voltage deviation, active and reactive power losses of 15.6075 pu, 519.3944 kW and 505.3686 kVAR, respectively. Using the GrMHSA and with DGs optimally sized and placed on one of the nodes of the feeder, the total voltage deviation, active and reactive power losses are reduced to 1.479 p. u, 95.398 kW and 90.979 kVAR, respectively. GrMHSA is compared with Multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO), the most familiar optimization algorithm frequently used for DG placement and sizing, and it was found that GrMHSA performed better than MOPSO.