2016 IEEE Students' Conference on Electrical, Electronics and Computer Science
Optimal Allocation and Sizing of Shunt Capacitor in
Distribution System for Power Loss Minimization
Mukul Dixit Prasanta Kundu
Electrical Engineering Department Electrical Engineering Department
S. V. National Institute of Technology S. V. National Institute of Technology
Surat, INDIA Surat, INDIA
mukul611@gmail.com pk@eed.svnit.ac.in
Abstract—This paper presents an optimal allocation and
sizing of shunt capacitor in Radial Distribution Network (RDN)
for minimizing the real power loss and total cost of the system.
Loss Sensitivity Factor (LSF) approach is utilized to identify
sensitive buses for capacitor placement and optimal size of shunt
capacitor is determined by using Particle Swarm Optimization
(PSO) algorithm and minimize the total real power loss objective
function. As a result it is observed that net saving is increased,
enhance the voltage profile and improve power factor after
capacitor placement. The proposed approaches have been
demonstrated on standard 10-bus and 34-bus radial distribution
systems. The obtained numerical results of the proposed
approach have been compared to the other intelligent techniques.
Keywords—capacitor allocatio; capacitor sizing; LSF; PSO;
power loss; voltage profile
I. INTRODUCTION
Power losses occurred in the distribution systems are very
attention part of the electrical power system. In order to
minimize these losses certain electrical devices, energy sources
and equipment are connected to the system for enhance the
system stability and voltage profile. The power loss of the
system can be minimized by applying some reactive power
support. The addition of the reactive power can be useful only
when it applies correctly. If the improper selection of size and
location of reactive power support increases the system power
losses and deteriorate the voltage profile of the system. The
two types of losses occur in the distribution system (i) Active
power loss (ii) Reactive power loss; these losses can be
represented as shown below.
br
Ploss =  I n2 Rn (1)
n=1
br
Qloss =  I n2 X n (2)
n=1
In is the branch current between the two buses, Rn and Xn
are the resistance and reactance of the branches respectively
and n represent the number of branch. Many researchers have
published so many papers on optimal placement of shunt
capacitor in a distribution system problem using different
approaches as well as using different intelligence techniques.
Such as Particle Swam Optimization (PSO), Genetic algorithm
(GA), Ant colony algorithm, Mixed integer Non Linear
Programming (MINLP), Artificial Bee colony (ABC),
978-1-4673-7918-2/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Hitesh. R. Jariwala
Electrical Engineering Department
S. V. National Institute of Technology
Surat, INDIA
hrj@eed.svnit.ac.in
Harmony Search (HS), Direct Search (DS), Plant Growth
Simulation Algorithm (PGSA), Differential Evaluation (DE),
Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CSA), Bacterial Forging Algorithm
(BFA), Teaching Learning Based Optimization (TLBO),
Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA).
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
In the recent years, so many research papers have been
published on optimal capacitor placement in the RDN. A multi-
objective optimization algorithm has been used to minimize the
power losses of distribution system using immune optimization
algorithm [1]. Power loss index (PLI) and LSF approaches
have been used to find the sensitive buses for capacitor
placement and the DE algorithm has been utilized to calculate
the optimal size of the capacitor [2]. A PGSA algorithm and
LSF approach have been utilized for optimal sitting and sizing
of capacitor in RDN and minimize the total power losses and
enhance the voltage profile of the system [3]. Ant colony
optimization algorithm and sensitivity based approach have
been implemented on standard 69- Bus RDN for capacitor
placement at different load level and minimize the total power
losses of the system [4]. In [5] Fixed and switched capacitor
have been placed at optimal locations in RDN at different load
level using PLI and the optimal size of the capacitor is
calculated using CSA algorithm. Fuzzy multi-objective
optimization algorithm has been employed for optimal
capacitor placement and network reconfiguration
simultaneously to minimize the power losses and also enhance
the voltage profile as well as system efficiency [6]. The
author’s contribution in this paper is optimal siting and sizing
of shunt capacitor in RDN to minimize the total power losses
and total cost of the system using the PSO algorithm. The
obtained numerical results have been compared to the other
intelligent technique and show the usefulness of the proposed
approach.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section
II describes the brief literature review on optimal capacitor
placement in RDN using different optimization techniques;
Section III represents a problem formulation and having an
objective function of the problem and load flow equations of
the system; Section IV describes a LSF approach and its steps;
Section V describes a brief discussion of PSO algorithm;
Section VI represent the implementation of PSO algorithm on
optimal capacitor placement problem; Results and discussion
are mentioned in Section VII. Based on the obtained numerical
results, the conclusion is mentioned in section VIII.
 III. PROBLEM FORMULATION 2 2
( Ppq + Q pq )
F
The main objectives of this study are optimal siting, Ppq = Pq + PL + R pq 2 (7)
optimal sizing of shunt capacitor to minimize the total real Vp
power loss and total cost and also improve the voltage profile 2 2
of the system subjected to some operating constraint. One F ( Ppq + Q pq )
Q pq = Qq + QL + X pq (8)
assumption has been considered the system is balanced. Vp
2
The fitness function of the optimal capacitor placement
problem is representing to minimize the total power loss of the
) (
( Ppq2 + Q2pq )
system defined by equation (3).
2
q
2
p (
V = V − 2 PpqRpq +Qpq X pq + R2pq + X 2pq ) 2
Vp
(9)

br
minimize PTloss =  Ploss,i (3) F F
i =1 Whereas Pq and Qq are the total active and reactive power
The total real power loss of the system is found by adding flow through the branches respectively.
up the losses of every branch of the system. The voltage
magnitude limit at each bus within the permissible range, given IV. LOSS SENSITIVITY FACTOR (LSF) APPROACH
by equation (4) The LSF approach has been utilized to evaluate the
Vmin ≤ Vi ≤ Vmax (4) sensitivity of the buses and helpful to find candidate buses for
capacitor placement. This approach also reduces the search
Where Vi is the voltage magnitude of bus i. Vmin and Vmax space during the optimization period. The active power loss
are minimum and maximum values of the system voltage between the buses p and q can also be written as using equation
respectively. (10).
The size of the capacitor not more than the total reactive
load of the system.
Plineloss (q) =
( Peff ( q ) + Qeff ( q ) )
2 2
×R (10)
2 pq
Qqc ≤ QqL (5) Vq

c Similarly the reactive power loss between the two buses p

Where Qq and Q are the size of the capacitor and total and q can be written as
qL
system reactive power load at bus q respectively.
The total cost of the system is a sum of total power loss Qlineloss (q) =
( Peff ( q ) + Qeff ( q ) )
2 2
×X (11)
2 pq
cost and capacitor installation cost. The total cost of the system Vq
is calculated using equation (6).
Whereas Peff ( q ) and Qeff ( q ) is the total effective active
CB
minimize TC = K pc PTLoss +  K qcQqc (6) and reactive power load beyond node q respectively.
q =1 The LSF can be calculated using equation (12) (13).
where CB is the candidate buses for capacitor placement. Kpc
dPlineloss 2Qeff ( q ) × R pq
is the equivalent power loss cost 168 $/kW. Kqc is the capacitor
= (12)
installation cost in $/kVAr [7]. dQeff Vq
2

dQlineloss 2 Peff ( q ) × X pq
Ppq + jQ pq = (13)
R pq + jX pq PqF + jQqF 2
dPeff Vq

Steps for sensitivity analysis are shown below

Step I: Calculate the LSF values

Fig. 1. Distribution system branch model between the two nodes p and q dP
LSF = lineloss for all the buses
Consider a distribution line between the two nodes p and q dQ
eff
having a resistance and reactance are Rpq and Xpq respectively,
also having a load PL+jQLis shown in Fig 1. The active and Step II: Sorting these LSF values in descending order.
reactive power flow between the two nodes is calculated by the Step III: Compute the normalized voltage.
equation given below.
V (i)
norm(i) = for all the buses
0.95

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Step IV: Those buses having high LSF values and low
normalized voltage norm (i) below 1.01 are selected
as candidate buses for capacitor placement.
V. PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION (PSO) ALGORITHM
PSO is a meta heuristic technique used for optimization of
nonlinear problems. PSO algorithm is based on the
methodologies of bird flocking and fish schooling. Kennedy
and Eberhart firstly introduced the PSO algorithm in 1995 [8].
It is inspired from the social behavior and dynamic movement
of particles in a swarm. These particles of the swarm move
around in the search space for searching the best solution and
each particle having the solution of the problem. In the search
space particles adjust according to own flying experience as
well as swarm movement. Particles change their position with
time for optimum solution with the velocity.
Let position xi and velocity vi of the ith particle in the d-
dimension search space is represented as xi=(xi1,xi2…xid) and
vi=(vi1,vi2…vid) respectively. The modified velocity and
position of each particle (t+1)th iteration is calculated using
equation (14) (15).
t +1 t t +1
xid = xid + vid , i=1,2,…n (15)
d=1,2,…m
where n and m is the number of particles and numbers of
members respectively. rand(1) is a random number between 0
and 1, w is the inertia weight factor, c1 and c2 are the
acceleration coefficient. xt and vt is the position and
id id
velocity of the d-dimension for ith particle at kth iteration
respectively, pbestd represent the best solution and gbestd shows
the best solution among all pbestd. The selection of weight factor
is set according to equation (16). It also maintains the
exploration property of the algorithm. The minimum and
maximum value of w is 0.9 – 0.4. itermax and iter is the
maximum number of iteration and present number of iteration
respectively.
w − wmin
w = wmax − max × iter (16)
itermax
VI. IMPLEMENTATION OF PSO ALGORITHM FOR OPTIMAL
CAPACITOR PLACEMENT
The PSO algorithm has been demonstrated to solve optimal
capacitor placement problem. The following steps for
implementation are shown below
Step I: Initialize the power system data such as line data and
load data, limit values, optimization algorithm
parameters such as number of particles, weight factor,
maximum number of cycles (MNC) etc.
Step II: After Initialization, the location of the shunt capacitors
is defined in the search space as per LSF values.
Step III: The random size of capacitor is calculated using
equation (14-15). The random size of capacitor is
converted into standard size of capacitor by using
C − C s1
if Cs1 ≤ Cij ≤Cs2 − s2
2
Cdi = Cs1

C −C C −C
s2 s1 s3 s2
else C − ≤C ≤C −
s2 2 ij s3 2
Cdi = C s 2
.
.
C s(n − 1) − C s(n − 2) C sn − C s(n − 1)
if C s(n − 1) − ≤C ij ≤ Csn −
2 2
Cdi = Cs(n − 1)
C sn − C s(n − 1)
else Cij ≥ Csn −
2
Fig. 2. Flowchart of PSO Algorithm Cdi = Qsn
end
vt +1 = w × vt + c1× rand (1) ×  Pbestid − xt  Step IV: From the above standard values of capacitor, run the
id id  id 
PSO and load flow problem simultaneously and
 t
+ c2 × rand (1) ×  gbestd − x 
(14) calculate the objective function values using equation
 id 
(3) (6).

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Step V: Initially iteration cycle set as 1 and repeats all steps till TABLE I. RESULTS OF 10-BUS RDN
the maximum number of cycles (MNC) reached. Before After capacitor placement
Items capacitor Fuzzy
VII. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION placement Proposed PSO
reasoning [10]
Total real power losses
The proposed approach and optimization technique have 783.67 704.883 703.97
(kW)
been demonstrated on standard test systems such as 10-bus % real power loss
RDN and 34-bus RDN for optimal sitting and sizing of shunt - 10.05 10.17
reduction
capacitor to minimize the power loss and total cost. The whole Total reactive power
1036.52 - 916.82
work has been programmed in MATLAB R2009b version and losses (kVAr)
Intel® CORE™ i5 computer with 4 GB RAM and 64-bit % reactive power loss
- - 11.55
reduction
operating system. The obtained numerical results of considered 4 1050 6 1200
test systems are mentioned in the respective sections. Optimal location and 5 1050 5 1200
-
size (kVAr) 6 1950 9 300
A. 10-Bus RDN 10 900 10 150
Total compensation
This test system consists of 10 buses and 9 branches. It - 4950 2850
(kVAr)
contains only one main radial feeder and having no lateral. The Total power loss cost
131656.56 118420.34 118266.96
load and line data are adopted from [9]. The total active and ($/kW)
reactive load of the system is 12368 kW and 4186 kVar Capacitor Installation
- 1054.95 588
cost ($/kVAr)
respectively. The calculated LSF values and normalized Total Annual cost
voltage of all the buses are shown in Fig 3 and Fig 4 ($/year)
131656.56 119475.29 118854.96
respectively. The buses having high LSF values and low Net Saving ($/year) - 12181.27 12801.60
normalized voltage below 1.01 are selected as candidature
buses for placement of capacitor; the sensitive buses are as % Saving - 9.25 9.72
follows {6, 5, 9, 10, 8 and 7}. The capacitor has placed at top Vmin 0.8375 - 0.8730
four sensitive buses with optimal size are shown in Table- I.
The minimum voltages before and after capacitor placement Vmax 0.9929 - 0.9951
are 0.8375 and 0.8730 respectively. The percentage loss Power Factor 0.95 0.99
reduction after capacitor placement is 10.17%. The voltage
profile comparison before and after capacitor placement at
optimal location is shown in Fig 5.

Fig. 5. Voltage profile for 10 bus RDN with and without capacitor placement
Fig. 3. LSF values of 10- bus RDN
The overall system power factor has also improved from 0.95
to 0.99 after capacitor placement. The total cost of the system
has been reduced after capacitor placement as compared to the
base case and percentage net saving is 9.72%. The obtained
numerical results are compared to the other intelligent
technique.

Fig. 4. Normalized voltage of 10 bus RDN
B. 34-Bus RDN
This test system consists of 34 buses and 33 branches. It
contains one main radial feeder and having four laterals. The
load and line data are taken from [11]. The total real and
reactive load of the system is 4636.5 kW and 2873.5 kVar
respectively. The calculated LSF and normalized voltage of all
the buses are shown in Fig 6 and Fig 7 respectively. The buses

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having high LSF value and low normalized voltage below 1.01 case and percentage net saving is 22.67%. The obtained
are selected as a candidature bus for placement of capacitor; numerical results have compared to the other intelligent
the sensitive buses are as follows {19, 22, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26 technique.
and 27}.
TABLE II. RESULTS OF 34-BUS RDN

Before After capacitor placement

Items capacitor Heuristic Proposed
placement based [11] PSO
Total real power losses
221.74 168.47 168.37
(kW)
% real power loss
- 24.02 24.06
reduction
Total reactive power
65.12 - 48.96
losses (kVAr)
% reactive power loss
- - 24.81
reduction
19 900
26 1400
22 150
Optimal location and 11 750
- 20 150
size (kVAr) 17 300
21 150
Fig. 6. LSF values of 34 bus RDN 4 250
23 600
Total compensation
- 2700 1950
(kVAr)
Total power loss cost
37252.32 28302.96 28286.16
($/kW)
Capacitor Installation
- 696.45 521.70
cost ($/kVAr)
Total Annual cost
37252.32 28999.41 28807.86
($/year)
Net Saving ($/year) - 8252.91 8444.46
% Saving - 22.15 22.67
Vmin 0.9417 - 0.9502
Vmax 0.9941 - 0.9950
Power Factor 0.85 0.98
Fig. 7. Normalized voltage of 34 bus RDN

The capacitor has placed at top five sensitive buses with

optimal size are shown in Table- II. The minimum voltages
before and after capacitor placement are 0.9417 and 0.9502
respectively. The percentage loss reduction after capacitor
placement is 24.06%.

Fig. 9. Power factor comparison before and after capacitor placement

The comparison of power factor before and after capacitor

placement for 10-bus and 34-bus RDN are shown in Fig 9.

Fig. 8. Voltage profile for 34 bus RDN with and without capacitor placement
The voltage profile comparison before and after
capacitor placement at optimal location is shown in Fig 8. The
overall system power factor has also improved from 0.85.to
0.98 after capacitor placement. The total cost of the system has
been reduced after capacitor placement as compared to the base
VIII. CONCLUSION
In this study, the optimal sizing and siting of shunt
capacitor in RDN to minimize the total real power loss and
total cost of the system. The optimal allocation and size of
shunt capacitor is determined using LSF approach and PSO
technique respectively. This method is implemented on two
standard test systems 10-bus and 34-bus RDN. From Table I
and Table II it is found that the total real power loss, total cost,
net saving and voltage profile of the system is significantly

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improved as compared to the base case. The overall system
power factor is also improved after optimal capacitor
placement. This technique is easy to execute on capacitor
placement problem in RDN.

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