Maximum Loss Reduction by Optimal
Placement of Capacitors on a Distribution
System
B.V.Vibhute, Dr. H.P. Inamdar, and S.A. Deokar
Abstract -- This paper presents an implementation of a Novel
Approach in radial distribution system for cost of loss reduction
on an 11 KV distribution system consisting of 37 buses and 35
transmission lines. The study is carried out incorporating an
appropriate load distribution model. This approach identifies
an optimal location (node) of the capacitor by sequential
comparison of line flows with previous ones followed by
determination of size of the capacitor for maximum loss
reduction by taking the voltage magnitude and currents at that
particular node. The installation of capacitor indicated the
reduction in total system losses and there is overall
improvement in voltage profile of the system.
A study has been carried out on the 11 KV distribution system.
The objective of reducing the losses and improvement in voltage
profile has been successfully achieved. After installation of
capacitor, the system can save a total energy of 682.8 KWH per
day, which is very substantial.
Index Terms – Capacitor, Energy, Reactive Power, System
loss, Voltage Profile.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE I2R loss reduction in distribution systems is very
T essential to improve the overall efficiency of power
system. The I2R losses can be separated into two parts based
on the active and reactive components of the branch current.
Capacitors have been very commonly used to provide reactive
power compensation in distribution system. The amount of
compensation provided is very much linked to the placement
of capacitors in distribution feeders as it reduces power and
energy losses, increases the available capacity of the feeders,
and improves the feeder voltage profile. These capacitors
also reduces the lagging component current, increases the
power factor of generators, improves regulation and more
importantly increases the savings and hence reduces the cost
of power to consumers.
Capacitors provide reactive power compensation in
distribution systems. They are provided to minimize power
B.V.Vibhute is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Bharati
Vidyapeeth Deemed University College of Engineering, Pune, India
(rajuvibhute@yahoo.com)
Dr. H.P. Inandar is with the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Walchand College of Engineering , Sangli, India
S.A. Deokar is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, All India
Shri Shivaji Memorial Societies College of Engineering, Pune, India
(s_seokar2@rediffmail.com)
0-7803-9525-5/06/$20.00 ©2006 IEEE.
and energy losses and to maintain the voltage profile within
the acceptable limits. The amount of compensation provided
is very much linked to the placement of capacitors in the
distribution system, which is essentially determination of the
location, size, number and type of capacitors to be placed in
the system.
The capacitor placement problem is a well research topic that
has been addressed by many authors in the past. All
approaches differ from each other by way of their problem
formulation and problem solution methods employed.
The paper proposes a method of minimizing the cost of loss
associated with the reactive component of branch currents by
placing optimal capacitors at proper locations. The method
first finds the location of the capacitors in a sequential
manner. Once the location is determined, the capacitor size
at each location is determined through optimizing the
reduction in the cost of losses.
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION
In the proposed method a sequence of nodes to be
compensated by the capacitors are identified. The sequence is
determined by repetitive application of minimization cost of
loss technique satisfying with single capacitor located at
proper node. Once the sequence of nodes to be compensated
are identified, the corresponding optimal capacitor size at the
compensated nodes can be determined simultaneously by
minimizing the cost of loss saving equation with respect to
the capacitor currents. Following sections describes the
procedure for placement of capacitor.
III. METHODOLOGY
With the help of line flows and bus voltages and powers
obtained from the load flow result, the branch current is
calculated from the formula.
Pik − jQik
I ik = --- ------------(I)
Vi
where
Iik = Current through branch (ik).
Pik = Total real power flow in the branch (ik).
Qik = Total reactive power flow in the branch (ik).
Vi = Voltage at node (i).
Total power loss The loss saving S is the difference between equation (1) and
n (2) is given by
TPL = ¦ I ik2 Rik
ik =1 S = TPLr–TPLrcom
where
Rik = Resistance of branch (ik). n n
n = Total number of branches. = ¦ (I 2
r ( ik ) Rik − ¦ ( I r ( ik ) + D(ik ) I c ) 2 Rik
The branch current has two components: active (Ia) and ik =1 ik =1
reactive (If). The total loss associated with the active and n
reactive components of branch current can be written as, = ¦ (2 D ik I r (ik ) I c + Dik I c2 ) Rik
n n ik =1
TPLa = ¦ I a2(ik ) Rik TPLr = ¦ I r2(ik ) Rik
ik =1 ik =1 The capacitor current Ic that provides maximum loss saving
can be obtained from
The loss TPLa associated with the active component of branch δS/δIc=0 Ÿ
current cannot be minimized For a single – source radial ªn º
network because all active power must be supplied by the − 2 «¦ ( Dik I r (ik ) + Dik I c ) Rik » = 0
source at the root bus. However, supplying part of the ¬ik =1 ¼
reactive power demands locally, the loss TPLr associated with Thus the capacitor current form loss saving is given by
the reactive components of branch currents can minimized. − ¦ I r (ik ) Rik
ik∈α
. Ic = ----- (II)
¦α R
ik ∈
ik

The corresponding capacitor size is

Qc = Vm I c -----(III)

Where Qc = Capacitor size in KVAR

Fig. 1. Loss minimization using capacitor.
Let a capacitor be placed at bus ‘q’ and ‘α’ be a set of
branches connected between the source and capacitor is
placed and capacitor bus. A section of single line diagram is
shown in Fig 1. If the capacitor is placed at ‘bus8’(q=8) the
set α consists of branches a, b, c, f. Similarly when capacitor
is placed at ‘bus 6’ (q=6) the set α consists of branches a, b,
e.
The capacitor draws a reactive current IC and for a radial
network it changes only the reactive component of current of
branch set α. The current of other branches (∉α) is
unaffected by the capacitor. Thus the new reactive current
I rnew th
( ik ) of the (ik) branch is given by,
( ik ) = I r ( ik ) + D( ik ) I c
I rnew
where Dik = 1 ; if branch ik ∈ α
= 0 , otherwise.
Here Ir(ik) is the reactive current of the (ik)th branch in the
original system obtained from the load flow solution. The
loss TPLrcom associated with the reactive component of branch
current in the compensated system (when the capacitor is
connected) can be written as
n repeated till the destination i.e bus ‘2’ is reached.
TPLcom
r = ¦ ( I r (ik ) + D(ik ) I c ) 2 Rik
ik =1
Vm = Voltage magnitude of bus ‘m’ in volts
Ic = Capacitor current in amps.
The corresponding Susceptance is
S = Ic ---------------------------(IV)
Vm
The proposed technique can also be repeatedly employed to
further optimising saving of cost of energy by identifying
sequence of buses to be compensated for further loss
reduction by optimal placement of capacitor.
IV. ALGORITHM
Step 1 : Variable declaration.
Step 2 : Opening of input and output file.
Step 3 : Conversion of polar form of bus voltage to
corresponding rectangular form.
Step 4 : The branch current is calculated using (I) with the
help of line flows.
Step 5 :The resistance of each line is read from the input file.
In order to find capacitor current.
Step 6 :The destination is fixed as bus number ‘2’. The
source count is taken as ‘37’. From the line flows,
the From bus Of the 37th bus is compared with the
bus of the previous branch line flow, if both are
same, the branch is taken else it is left and is
compared with the previous line.The process is
Step 7:After finding the path, the capacitor current is
calculated using the formula (II).
Step 8 :The capacitor size is found by the formula (III).
Step 9 :The susceptance for the corresponding Q value is Total cost of capacitor = 345 * 220 * 4
calculated by formula (IV). = Rs. 3,03,600
Step10 : Now the source count is decremented till it reaches
bus number 2. Then the whole process is repeated VI. CONCLUSION
from step 6.
The objective of reducing the losses and improvement in
V. CASE STUDY & RESEARCH voltage profile has been successfully achieved studying 11
KV distribution system. After installation of capacitor, the
The technique proposed is tested on 11 KV distribution system can save a total energy of 862.8 KW per day, which is
system. There are about 37 buses, 35 transmission lines and very substantial. The repeated simulation results could be
28 load centres. The data regarding, line and transformers used to develop a Neural Network Model which can
are collected and are converted into per unit values to feed to accurately predict the location and size of capacitor for any
a load flow program. load conditions which gives a great promise for practical
Load flow study of the base case system is carried out using implementation of the proposed technique. The proposed
Mipower package. The result shows a system loss of method was tested on a 11 KV distribution system and
10.179% and voltage drop of 2.1 KV. This tells about the promising results were obtained.
scope for improvement in the distribution system.
With the help of the proposed technique loss reduction is VII. REFERENCES
maximum when a capacitor is placed at 22nd bus. After [1] S.I.Wamoto and Y.Tamura (1981), “A load flow calculation method for
installation, the load flow result indicate that the system loss ill-conditioned power system”, IEEE Trans. on Power Apparatus and
is reduced from 10.179 to 8.127 % and there is an overall Systems, Volume100, pp.1736-1740.
[2] D. Rajicic and Y.Tamura (1988), “A modification to fast decoupled power
improvement in the voltage profile of the system flow for networks with high R/X Ratio”, IEEE Trans. on Power Systems,
Volume 3, pp. 341- 348. [3] W.H.Kersting and D.L.Mendive (1796), “An
TABLE I application of ladder networks theory to the solution of three phase radial
POWER SAVING WITH CAPACIOR AND WITHOUT CAPACITOR load flow problem”, IEEE PES winter meeting, New York, paper A76
044-8.
[3] Aoki K, Kuwabara H, Satoh t, Kanezashi M (1988), “An efficient
Power Power With algorithm for load balancing of transformers and feeders”. IEEE Trans
Without the capacitor Difference in Power Deliv, Volume 3 (issue 4), pp.1865-1872.
Loading
placing placed at 33rd Active Power [4] Aoki k, Ichimori T, Kanezashi M. (1985), “Normal state optimal load
allocation in distribution systems”. IEEE Trans Power Deliv, Volume 3
capacitor bus (issue 1), pp. 147-155.
[5] S.Sivanagaraju, M.S.Giridhar, E.Jagadeesh Babu and Y. Srikath (2004),
Full load 0.2600 0.177 0.083 “A novel load flow technique for radial distribution system”,Proc. of
Half – National Power System Conference (NPSC-2004), IIT, Chennai, India, pp.
0.0559 0.0405 0.0154 140- 144.
Load [6] D.M. Tagare, Reactive Power Management, McGraw-Hill, 2000.
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The load period per day is aassumed as of National Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering(2000), Husur.

Full-load = 6 hrs
Half –load = 12 hrs VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
The cost of 1 KVAR of capacitor = Rs. 225
The cost of 1 KWH of energy = Rs. 2.5 B.V. Vibhute received the B.E. Degree in Electrical from Shivaji University in
Table I. presents computation results of active power with 1993, M.E. Degree in Electrical Power System from Pune University in 2002
and without capacitor placement. and perusing Ph.D. Degree under Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune.
Presently working as Assistant Professor at Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed
Energy Saving per day: University College of Engineering, Pune.
F.L. = 0.083 * 6 * 103 = 498 KWH His research interests are electricity sector deregulation and ancillary service
pricing and management.
H.L = 0.0154 * 12 * 103 = 184.8 KWH
--------------------------- Dr. H.P. Inamdar received the B.Sc. Degree from Pune University in
Total savings per day = 682.8 KWH 1961,B.E. Degree in Electrical and Mechanical from Shivaji University in 1964
and 1965 respectively, M.E. Degree in Electrical from Shivaji University in
--------------------------- 1975 and Ph.D. Degree in H.V. Engineering from Indian Institute of Science,
Banglore in 1985. Presently working as Professor at Walchand College of
Total cost of energy saved per day Engineering, Sangli.
= 682.8 * 365 * 2.5
S.A. Deokar is perusing M.E. Degree in Electrical Power System from Pune
= Rs. 6,23,055. University and Presently working as Lecturer at All India Shri Shivaji Memorial
Societies College of Engineering, Pune.
A capacitor bank consisting of 4 capacitors each of 340 His research interests are modeling and design of hybrid renewable energy
system and energy conservation.
KVAR is installed at 22nd bus. The capacitor bank is
switched on / off according to the loading condition.