OPTIMAL CAPACITOR PLACEMENT IN A

DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

BY
Gaurav Ranjan
 Overview
Capacitors have been very commonly employed to provide
reactive power compensation to distribution systems.

Capacitors are used to minimize the power and energy

losses and to enhance the voltage profile.

We represent an optimization method which uses fuzzy

and genetic algorithm for capacitor placement.
Fuzzy reasoning finds the sensitive nodes.

Three membership functions are defined for real power loss,

reactive power loss and voltage deviation, respectively.

A high power loss section of the feeder is given a low

membership value, while a low power loss section of the feeder
is given a high membership value.

The voltage deviation can be similarly defined, a bus with high

voltage deviation is given a low membership values.
The alpha-cut operation of a fuzzy set is used to obtain the
candidate location for capacitor installation.

The genetic algorithm determines the capacitor size and type for
installation.

In genetic algorithm application, the fitness function for each string
of the population is defined as the objective function of the system
model, which is composed of the peak power losses and cost of
capacitors added.
POWER CAPACITORS
 Definition

Power System Capacitor is an assembly

of dielectric Materials and Metal-
electrodes in a container (casing), with
terminals brought out, that is intended to
introduce capacitance into an electric
power circuit.
POWER CAPACITOR IN SERVICE
NATURE OF THE POWER CAPACITORS

The power capacitor can be considered to be a

VAR-GEN (reactive power Source), since it
actually supplies needed-magnetizing current
requirements for inductive loads.
The fundamental function of power capacitor is to
provide needed reactive power compensation.
CAPACITOR APPLICATION
Power factor correction
Feeder-Loss Reduction
Release of System capacity
Voltage- Stabilization/Regulation
Efficient Power Utilization
Power Quality Enhancement
Power Harmonic Filtering
Capacitor Placement
The Capacitor Location or Placement for low voltage
systems determines capacitor type, size, location and
control schemes.

Optimal capacitor placement is generally a hard

combinatorial .optimization problem that can be
formulated as a nonlinear/Search Minimization problem.
Capacitor Placement(cont…)
Almost all the methods to solve capacitor placement problems are
based on the historical data of the load models and associated cost
of the energy and the cost of capacitor banks.

Cost for Power savings and Losses (Power losses/Energy losses

Why AI for Capacitor
Placement ?
Historical Data and Load models are uncertain and may
change in reality.

To account for such load model and load pattern/cycles

uncertainties Soft-Computing AI Based algorithms using fuzzy
sets/Neural networks/Genetic Algorithm can be utilized.
Basics Steps to solve capacitor
placement problem
In general, capacitor placement problems can be
solved in two steps:

1.Use of load flow model and find the V,P,Q at all the
buses and also the feeder losses

2.Minimize the cost function-Jo-min - subject to

constraints, like practical limits of voltage and
capacitor size!
Fuzzy logic
 Fuzzy Sets
• Zadeh (1965) introduced “Fuzzy Sets” where he
replaced the characteristic function with membership

• Membership is a generalization of characteristic

function and gives a “degree of membership”

• Successful applications in control theoretic settings

(appliances, gearbox)
Fuzzy Relations
• The fuzzy relation R between Sets X and Y is
a fuzzy set in the Cartesian product X×Y

• mR: X × Y → [0,1] gives the degree to which x

and y are related to each other in R.
Fuzzy Logic
• Different views
– Foundation for reasoning based on uncertain
statements
– Foundation for reasoning based on uncertain
statements where fuzzy set theoretic tools are used
(original Zadeh)
– As a multi valued logic with operations chosen in a
special way that has some fuzzy interpretation
Fuzzy Rules
• “If x in A then y in B” is a relation R between
A and B
• Two model types
– Implicative: (x in A → y in B) is an upper bound
– Conjunctive: (x in A ^ y in B) is a lower bound
Uncertainty
• Fuzzy sets can be said to model inherent
vagueness
Bob is "tall" -vagueness in the meaning
of "tall", not in Bob's height
GENETIC ALGORITHMS
Genetic Algorithms (GA) OVERVIEW
A class of probabilistic optimization algorithms
Inspired by the biological evolution process
Uses concepts of “Natural Selection” and “Genetic
Inheritance” (Darwin 1859)
Originally developed by John Holland (1975)
Genetic Algorithms follow the idea of SURVIVAL OF
THE FITTEST- Better and better solutions evolve from
previous generations until a near optimal solution is
obtained.

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 GA overview (cont)
Particularly well suited for hard problems where
little is known about the underlying search space
Widely-used in business, science and engineering
Based on Darwinian’s principle of evolution

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Genetic Operators
Selection : This operator selects chromosomes in the
population for reproduction.The fitter the chromosome,
the more times it is likely to be selected to reproduce.
Crossover : This operator randomly chooses a locus and
exchanges the subsequences before and after that locus
between two chromosomes to create two offspring.
Mutation :This operator randomly flips some of the bits
in a chromosome.
When to Use a GA
Alternate solutions are too slow or overly complicated
Need an exploratory tool to examine new approaches
Problem is similar to one that has already been
successfully solved by using a GA
Want to hybridize with an existing solution
Benefits of the GA technology meet key problem
requirements
GAs Vs. other Search &
Optimization Methods
Multiple solutions can be obtained without extra effort.
GAs are implicitly parallel and can be implemented on
parallel machines.
GAs are quite successful in locating the regions containing
optimal solution(s), if not the optimum solution itself.
GAs can solve problems involving large time domain.
GAs Vs. other Search &
Optimization Methods
GAs work with a population of candidate solutions and not a
single point.
GAs work with coding of parameters instead of parameters
themselves.
GAs do not require any domain knowledge (gradient
information etc.) and just use the payoff information.
GAs are stochastic methods, i.e., use probabilistic transition
rules and not deterministic ones.
Applies to a variety of problems and not works in a restricted
domain.
Remaining Work to be
done:-
1.Optimize the cost using GA in MATLAB

2.SOLVING LOAD-FLOW using MATLAB

GENETIC ALGORITHMS

THANK YOU
QUERIES