Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440

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Electrical Power and Energy Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijepes

Optimal sitting and sizing of DGs in distribution system considering time

sequence characteristics of loads and DGs
Ke-yan Liu a,⇑, Wanxing Sheng a, Yuan Liu b, Xiaoli Meng a, Yongmei Liu a
a
Power Distribution Research Department, China Electric Power Research Institute, Beijing 100192, China
b
China North Vehicle Research Institute, Beijing 100072, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: With the consideration of time sequence characteristics of load and distributed generator (DG) output, a
Received 16 April 2014 novel method is presented for optimal sitting and sizing of DG in distributed system. Multi-objective
Received in revised form 21 January 2015 functions have been formulated with the consideration of minimum investment and operational cost
Accepted 31 January 2015
of DG, minimum purchasing electricity cost from main grid and minimum voltage deviation. To solve
Available online 18 February 2015
the multi-objective optimization problem, an improved Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II
has been proposed. The compromised solution is extracted from the Pareto set using the fuzzy theory
Keywords:
method. Several experiments have been made on the modified PG&E 69-bus and multiple actual test
Distribution system planning
Distributed generator
cases with the consideration of multiple DGs. The computational result and comparisons indicate the
Multi-objective optimization proposed method for optimal placement and sizing of DG is feasible and effective.
Improved NSGA-II Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction system. Literature includes many DG planning studies that

With the increasing penetration of wind power, photovoltaic
(PV) power generation and other renewable energy technologies,
distributed generation (DG) technology has become a hot research
topic. The DG integration in distribution system may create techni-
cal and safety problems. In order to improve the network benefits
and reliability, the location and size of DGs need to be planned
optimally in the planning. For decision maker, there are a lot of
research challenges since many objectives and constraints factors
needed to be considered. The increasing penetration levels require
robust tools and methods that help assess capabilities and require-
ments of networks in order to produce the best planning and
control strategy [1]. It should be recognized that modern distribu-
tion business will see many market players pursuing different
objectives. Among multiple methods and tools, the multi-objective
evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) provided a powerful searching
method in multi-objective components to get an even Pareto-
optimal set. In addition, increasing penetrations of variable renew-
able generation makes it essential to account for the time-varying
characteristics of both generation and demand.
From the perspective of mathematical optimization, DG
planning is a complex multi-objective optimization problem that
presents a challenge to the optimization analysis in distribution
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: liukeyan@epri.sgcc.com.cn (K.-y. Liu).
examined multi-objectives and applied evolutionary optimization
techniques. In the traditional approach, multi-objective optimiza-
tion problem was treated as a single objective problem. And the
new objective function is formed as a weighted sum of all
objectives using suitable weighting factors. This approach has the
disadvantage of finding only a single solution which does not pre-
sent the tradeoff among the different objectives. And weighting
factors need to be tuned to find appropriate values. Using afore-
mentioned approach, the simulated annealing technique had been
applied to optimize the multi-objective model of DG planning [2].
In [3], a multi-objective Tabu search method was utilized to opti-
mize a DG allocation problem, which provided to find the optimal
Pareto-optimal set. An algorithm that integrated genetic algorithm
(GA) and Tabu search method was used to optimize DG allocation
in [4]. Fuzzy optimization was also used to solve the multi-objec-
tive optimization of DG allocation in [5]. Particle swarm optimiza-
tion (PSO) method was utilized to determine optimal location and
size in [6], and the optimization objective is to maximize DG
penetration.
In case of multiple conflicting optimization objectives, there
may not be a solution which is the best solution for all objectives.
Therefore, a ‘‘tradeoff’’ solution is needed instead of a single solu-
tion in multi-objective optimization. An integrated methodology
was proposed for distribution network (DN) planning in [7], where
a modified discrete PSO was employed for the integer program-
ming problem. An improved differential evolution (DE) algorithm

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2015.01.033
0142-0615/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 K.-y. Liu et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440
was proposed to determine best sites, sizes and optimal payment
incentives under special contracts for committed-type DG projects
in [8]. In [9], a multi-criteria planning model aiming to minimize
the cost and maximize the reliability of generating units was
proposed. Both objectives were attained by seeking a Pareto
optimality that jointly optimize the sizing, sitting and maintenance
schedules. A multi-objective performance index-based size and
location determination of DG was presented with different load
models in [10]. Its work only focused on a single DG case with
the assumption that the DG integration was made as an expansion
to existing DN. In [11], a new optimization approach was present-
ed, and an artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm was used to deter-
mine the optimal size, power factor, and location of DGs in order to
minimize the total line loss. A sensitivity analysis method of DG
allocation was proposed to improve the voltage stability margin
in [12]. An approach using improved Harmony Search (HS)
algorithm was presented in [13] for allocating DGs in radial distri-
bution systems. In [14], DG allocation was optimized to minimize
system line loss, enhance reliability improvement and voltage pro-
file based on dynamic programming. Besides, time varying load
was applied in the optimization to reach optimal results and
cost/benefit forms were used. In [15], an efficient technique was
presented for optimal placement and sizing of DGs in a large scale
radial DN. It took minimizing line loss minimization and voltage
stability improvement into consideration. An improved PSO-Monte
Carlo algorithm was proposed in [16] for minimizing power losses
and improvement of voltage profile and reliability of DN.
Although the attentions of the previous works had been focused
on line loss and costs for network upgrading, relatively little effort
was involved with time series data from loads and DGs. The inher-
ent relations among the multi-objectives were not investigated
yet. In this paper, we firstly establish the multi-objective
mathematic model with the consideration of minimum annual
investment and operation (I&O) cost of DG, minimum purchasing
electricity cost and minimum voltage deviation, and then the
optimization problem is solved by the improved Non-dominated
Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (INSGA-II).
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Time
sequence characteristic of load and DG is discussed in Section ‘Time
sequence characteristic of load and DG’. Section ‘Problem formula-
tion’ states the formulation of the proposed multi-objective opti-
mization formulation for DG planning. Section ‘Improved NSGA-II
algorithm’ describes the proposed INSGA-II algorithm to solve
the optimization problem. Section ‘Experiments and results’
provides numerical results and comparisons using multiple test
systems with DGs. Main contributions and conclusions of this
paper are summarized in Section ‘Conclusions’.
Time sequence characteristic of load and DG
Time sequence characteristic of variant load
The system considered in this paper is assumed to follow the
load curve in Fig. 1. As shown in Fig. 1, each year is divided into
four seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter). An hourly load
curve of a day is representing each season. In order to consider dif-
ferent load demands, the load can be classified as four typical ones
(industry, agriculture, commercial and municipal engineering
load). For different loads, it will show different regularities in four
seasons.
Time sequence characteristic of DG output
A constant power (real and reactive) generation model is nor-
mally assumed in most of the studies. However, the assumption
431
has some difference with real application with non-dispatchable
DG, since the output of wind turbine (WT) or photovoltaic (PV) is
influenced a lot by nature environment and geographical location.
The average DG output capacity of 24 time periods in one day of
each season is utilized, and different types of DG containing WT
and PV power generations are considered in this paper. The time
sequence characteristic of each DG type is illustrated in Fig. 2.
There is an assumption that the variation of 24 h in each season
keeps the same for WT and PV generation output.
Problem formulation
Three objectives are considered in the optimization model,
which includes annual I&O cost of DG, purchasing electricity cost
from main grid and voltage deviation. The first optimization objec-
tive is to minimize annual I&O cost of DG, which is mainly based on
the average or equivalent cost of DG. The second objective is relat-
ed with distribution management, where the consumer uses DG to
maximize savings on their bills. The third objective is to decrease
system voltage deviation, which is the objective of distribution uti-
lity. The three objectives involve different perspectives based on
DG owners and power utility, however the objectives may conflict.
For example, putting more DGs in distribution system can decrease
the purchasing electricity cost from main grid, however it will
bring the voltage variation and increase the I&O cost.
Minimize annual investment and operation cost
Since the wind and solar power are renewable energy, and there
is no pollutant in power generation, the I&O cost holds the vast
majority of total cost of DG. In order to consider the time sequence
characteristic of DG, the working scenarios at different time
periods are calculated. Assuming DG power output in each time
segment remains constant, the annual I&O cost can be described
as follows:
min f 1 ðxÞ ¼ min C DG
Nh
!
X
NDG X ð1Þ
C DG ¼ ðC I i þ C O&M i Þ PDG i;k t k
i¼1 k¼1
where NDG is the number of DG, C I i and C O&M i are the investment
cost and maintenance cost of i-th DG respectively, P DG i;k is active
power of i-th DG at the k-th time period; tk is the duration of k-th
time segment which is set to 1 h in this paper. For one year, Nh
equals to 8760 h.
The computation of C I i is listed as follows:
rð1 þ rÞn PI i
CI i ¼  ð2Þ
ð1 þ rÞn  1 Nh  s
where s is the average capacity coefficient, and it equals to annual
power production divided by the rated power in one year. n is
operational life of the i-th DG, and r is fixed annual interest rate.
PI i is installation cost of i-th DG.
Minimize purchasing electricity cost from main grid
The second objective is annual purchasing electricity cost from
main grid, which includes fuel and environmental pollution cost of
thermal power plant. The annual purchasing electricity cost from
main grid can be formulated as follows:
min f 2 ðxÞ ¼ min C pur
Np
!N
X X h
ð3Þ
C pur ¼ C fuel þ C env ¼ Cf þ K i ðEi þ Ri Þ PSub k tk
i¼1 k¼1
432 K.-y. Liu et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440

100 100
Spring Spring
90 Summer 90 Summer
Autumn Autumn
80 80 Winter
Winter

Load demand (%).

Load demand (%)
70 70
60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 0 4 8 12 16 20 24
t (h) t (h)
(a) (b) Agricultural load
100 100
Spring Spring
90 90 Summer
Summer
80 Autumn 80 Autumn
Winter Spring
Load demand (%)

Load demand (%)

70 70
60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 0 4 8 12 16 20 24
t (h) t (h)
(c) Commercial load (d) Municipal load
Fig. 1. Time sequence characteristic curves of four load types.

100 100
Spring Spring
90 Summer 90 Summer
80 Autumn 80 Autumn
Winter Winter
70 70
Wind output (%)

PV output (%)

60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 0 4 8 12 16 20 24
t (h) t (h)
(a) Hourly wind output (b) Hourly PV output
Fig. 2. The time sequence characteristic curves of WT and PV generators in four seasons.

where Cfuel is the fuel cost, Cenv is the environmental pollution cost, X
N X
N DG

and Cf is the fuel cost of thermal power plant to produce a unit of PSub k ¼ PD i;k þ P loss;k  PDG i;k ð4Þ
i¼1 i¼1
electricity, Np is total kinds of gaseous pollutants, Ki is the emission
intensity of i-th gaseous pollutant to produce a unit of electricity, Ei
is the equivalent environmental value of i-th pollutant, and Ri is the where PD i;k is the active load of i-th bus in k-th time segment, Ploss;k
imposed penalty price of i-th pollutant. PSub k is total active power of is the active power loss in k-th time segment, P DG i;k is the active
distribution system provided by substation at the k-th time period, power output of i-th DG in k-th time segment, N is the node number
which is expressed as: in system.
 K.-y. Liu et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440 433

Minimization of voltage deviation Q min max

DGi 6 Q DGi 6 Q DGi ð8Þ

The third objective is to minimize the voltage deviation Load bus voltage constraints:
between nodal voltage and specified voltage magnitude. Nodal V min 6 V i 6 V max ð9Þ
i i
voltage magnitude is an important indicator to evaluate system
security and power quality. The minimization of voltage deviation Thermal limits:
can help to guarantee better voltage level in distribution system.
jSij j ¼ jV 2i Gij  V i V j ðGij cos hij þ Bij sin hij Þj 6 Smax
ij ð10Þ
The objective function can be formulated as:
8 !2 9 DG capacity constraints:
Nh <X
X =
N
V ki  V k;spec
i
min f 3 ðxÞ ¼ min ð5Þ X
NDG
k¼1
: i¼0 V k;max  V k;min ; PDGi 6 Dpf  Smax ð11Þ
i i load
i¼1
where V ki is the voltage magnitude at i-th bus of k-th time period, min max
In inequality constraints, P min max
DGi , P DGi , Q DGi and Q DGi are lower/upper
and V ik;spec is the specified voltage magnitude. V k;max and V k;min are
i i active and reactive generating unit limits of DG, respectively. Smax ij is
the upper and lower limit at i-th bus, respectively. The exponent
the apparent power thermal limit of circuit between bus i and j. Smax
in above equation is set to 2 in order to make the difference load

between the voltage in i-th node and the specified voltage non- is the total capacity of load in system, Dpf is the maximum penetra-
negative. tion limit as a percentage of the peak load, which is set to 35% in
this paper.
Constraints
Overview formulation
Three constraint conditions are considered in the optimization
model, which includes constraints of power flow equations, nodal In order to consider the comprehensive effect, the optimization
voltage and DG capacity, etc. model is established with the consideration of the minimal annual
I&O cost of DG, the minimal annual purchasing cost of distribution
(1) Equality constraints system and the minimal voltage deviation. Aggregating objectives
and constraints, the problem can be formulated as a nonlinear
The constraint of power flow equations is described as follows: programming problem as follows:

X
N min ½f 1 ðu; xÞ; f 2 ðu; xÞ; f 3 ðu; xÞ ð12Þ
PDGi  P di ¼ V i V j ðGij cos hij þ Bij sin hij Þ s:t: hi ðu; xÞ ¼ 0; i ¼ 1; . . . ; ne ð13Þ
j¼1
ð6Þ g i ðu; xÞ 6 0; i ¼ 1; . . . ; nine ð14Þ
X
N
Q DGi  Q di ¼ V i V j ðGij sin hij  Bij cos hij Þ where ne is the number of equality constraints, nine is the number of
j¼1 inequality constraints, u is the vector of controlling variables and x
where PDGi and QDGi are active and reactive generation outputs, is the vector of state variables. In this paper, it is assumed that the
whereas Pdi and Qdi are active and reactive loads at node i, respec- DG is PQ type and it has a constant power factor. The controlling
tively, Gij and Bij are real and imaginary parts of nodal admittance variables include type (WT or PV), placement and sizing of each
matrix, respectively, and N is the number of buses. DG. To consider the actual condition of DG integration, the unit
(2) Inequality constraints capacity of wind and PV generation is set to 200 kW and 10 kW,
Generation limits: respectively. So the rated power of wind and PV generation inte-
grated into DN can be expressed as m  200 kW or m  10 kW
Pmin max
DGi 6 P DGi 6 P DGi ð7Þ according to the corresponding DG type, where m is the integrated
number of DG unit. Integer coding is utilized in the encoding
scheme, which can be expressed as:

f2 ( X )
First front 2nd 3rd
non-dominated front front
solutions
A
a Process 1
Ă
Ă

b
B
Process 2
c
d
C

e Rejected

Combined population Next generation

O f1 ( X ) after sorting population

Fig. 3. Individual distribution chart. Fig. 4. Schematic chart of truncation strategy.

434 K.-y. Liu et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440

u ¼ ½TypeDG1 ; LocDG1 ; mDG1 ; . . . ; TypeDGN DG

; LocDGN DG
; mDGN DG
 Start
ð15Þ
Initialize the parameter
where TypeDG, LocDG and mDG are the type, placement and number and population
of units for each DG, respectively. N DG is the maximal number of
DG integrated into distribution system. Calculate power flow and each objective
function value
Treatment for equality and inequality constraints for each individual

Power flow equations can be satisfied during the process of

Non-dominated sorting and crowding-
power flow calculation. Through penalizing inequality constraints distance assignment for each individual
to the respective objective function, the multi-objective
constrained optimization problem can be transformed to
unconstrained form of multi-objective optimization problem, Parent selection through tournament mode
which can be expressed as follows:
!2
X
N Nb 
X 2
0 DV i DSi Crossover and mutation process
min f k ðxÞ ¼ f k ðxÞ þ w1 þ w2 to generate offspring
i¼1 V max
i  V min
i i¼1
Smax
i 0
 2
DP
þ w3 P DG k ¼ 1; 2; 3 ð16Þ Calculate power flow and each objective
0:25 Sload  0 function value for each offspring
individual
8 min
< V i  V i ; if
> V i < V min
i
DV i ¼ V i  V max
i ; if V i > V max
i ð17Þ Populations combination, Non-dominated
>
: sorting and crowding-distance assignment
0; if V min
i 6 V i 6 V max
i for each individual
(
Si  Smax
i ; if Si > Smax
i
DSi ¼ ð18Þ Generate the next generation using
0; if Si 6 Smax
i truncation strategy
P P P P
P DG  0:25 PLoad ; if PDG > 0:25 PLoad
DP DG ¼ P P ð19Þ No Convergence
0; if PDG 6 0:25 P Load
condition?
where w1, w2, and w3 are penalty factors of voltage constraint, line Yes
thermal constraint and DG penetration. DVi, DSi and DPDG are the
Best compromised solution selection
out-of-range values of variables in their ranges respectively.

Improved NSGA-II algorithm End

Overview of NSGA-II Fig. 5. The flow chart of INSGA-II solving process.

NSGA-II is a heuristic population search algorithm proposed by Table 1

Deb et al. [17]. It uses non-dominated sorting approach and density Emission intensities of pollution gases and their cost.
estimation strategy to constitute individual comparison operator SO2 NOx CO2 CO
[18]. Meanwhile, simulated binary crossover (SBX) and polynomial
Emission intensity (g/kW h) 6.48 2.88 623 0.1083
mutation (PM) is utilized in crossover and mutation operator. Environmental value ($/kg) 0.75 1 0.002875 0.125
Imposed penalty price ($/kg) 0.125 0.25 0.00125 0.02
Initialization

In INSGA-II, an individual i is a multi-dimensional vector
xi = [ui,1, ui,2,   , ui,NC]T. The population is initialized by randomly
generating individuals:
ui;j ¼ uj lowerlimit þ rand½0; 1  ðuj upperlimit  uj
i ¼ 1; 2; 3 . . . NP; j ¼ 1; 2; 3 . . . NC
where uj upperlimit and uj lowerlimit are upper and lower limits of j-th
chromosome, NP is the population size, and NC is the number of
chromosomes in each individual.
Improved Non-dominated sorting strategy
The non-dominated sorting is a process to classify a population
of solutions into the number of non-dominated fronts. Taking two
dimensional objectives problem as one example, the idea is
depicted in Fig. 3. As shown in Fig. 3, the first front (level 1) is a
set of non-dominated solutions in the entire population, and the
second front (level 2) is a set of non-dominated solutions in the
population ignoring the first level and so on until the entire
population is classified into k levels. It assumes that after fast
lowerlimit Þ
non-dominated sorting, individuals ae are at the first level and
ð20Þ individuals AC are at the second level. Meanwhile, individual A
is dominated by individual a, b and c, individual B is dominated
by individual c and d, individual C is dominated by individual e,
respectively.
Crowding-distance calculation and crowded-comparison operator
In order to estimate the density of solutions surrounding a
particular solution in the population, the crowding-distance of
individual xi is calculated as follows:
Nobj
X max min
xi distance ¼ ½ðf j ðxiþ1;j Þ  f j ðxi1;j ÞÞ=ðf j  fj Þ ð21Þ
j¼1
 K.-y. Liu et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440 435

Light industrial load

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69
Agricultural load

Commercial load
Substation 40 41 57 58
Municipal load

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

36 37 38 39 55 56

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

Fig. 6. Single line diagram of modified PG&E 69-bus system with four type loads.

where xi+1,j and xi1,j are objective function values of j-th iteration The truncation strategy is shown in Fig. 4. As shown in Fig. 4,
respectively, and they are adjacent individuals of xi in the same individuals with lower ranks can be conserved directly to the next
max min generation population (see process 1), until the size of next gen-
non-dominated set with xi; f j and f j are the maximum and
minimum values of the j-th objective function in the non-dominat- eration population overflows if all individuals in certain rank are
ed set of xi. maintained. According to INSGA-II, individuals are sorted in that
After all the individuals in each non-dominated set have been rank using the crowded-comparison operator in descending order,
assigned with the crowding-distance, the individuals in population and then individuals needed to fill all population slots are chosen
can be compared through the crowded-comparison operator, (see process 2).
which guides the selection process such as choosing the parents
and truncating the combined population, in order to shape a Crossover and mutation
uniform Pareto-optimal front. Assume that each individual xi in
population has two attributes: non-dominated rank xi rank and The ranked population is reproduced through crossover and
crowding-distance xi distance , then the crowed-comparison operator mutation operators. An individual’s non-dominated rank biases
can be described as: the probability of being selected for reproduction. The crossover
and mutation procedures are the same as those used in single
Ifðxi rank < xj rank Þ orðxi rank ¼ xj rank and xi distance > xj distance Þ objective optimization [17].
then xi  xj
ð22Þ Best compromise solution

If two solutions have different non-domination ranks, then the one For the decision making, it is necessary to select a best compro-
with lower rank is better; and if the two solutions have the same mise solution from obtained solution sets. Here, using Fuzzy Set
ranks, then the one with larger crowding-distance is better. Theory determines the best compromise solution. Firstly, the
membership function ski of the k-th solution for i-th objective
Truncation strategy function F ki is defined as:

At the t-th generation, the rank level and crowding-distance of F max  F ki

ski ¼ i
ð23Þ
individuals in combined population should be recalculated after F max
i  F min
i
combination of original population and new generated offspring
population. Then, a truncation strategy is employed to maintain where F max
i and F min
i are the maximum and minimum of i-th objec-
the fixed size of population by choosing the better individuals tive function among all non-dominated solutions, respectively.
and discarding the worse. Further the truncated population will Obviously, ski gives a measure of the satisfaction degree of the
evolve to the (t + 1)-th generation. k-th solution for i-th objective function. Then, using fuzzy decision

determines the best compromise solution xk in Pareto solution set
as:
8 9
< PNobj sk =
k k

i
6000 x ; and s ¼ max PM i¼1 PNobj ð24Þ
k¼1;...;M : sij ;
j¼1 i¼1
Voltage deviation

5000

4000 where M is the number of Pareto solutions, and Nobj is the number
of optimization objectives.
3000
Table 2
2000 Optimal result of DG integration in PG&E 69-bus.

1000 DG Placement Sizing Annual cost Cost of Voltage

6 type (units) of I&O ($) purchasing deviation
3 ($)
5
5 2 DG1 Wind 25 2 1.59  105 3.89  105 1378
x 10 4
1 x 105 DG2 PV 53 15
Annual purchasing cost ($) 3 0 Annual I&O cost of DG ($) DG3 Wind 50 4
DG4 PV 27 2
Fig. 7. The Pareto solution set for PG&E 69-bus.
436 K.-y. Liu et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440

x 105
6 5500

5000
5.5
Annual purchasing cost ($)
4500

Voltage deviation
4000
5
3500

3000
4.5
2500

4 2000

(a) 1500 (b)

3.5 1000
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Annual I&O cost of DG ($) x 105 Annual I&O cost of DG ($) x 105

5500

5000 (c)
4500
Voltage deviation

4000

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000
3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Annual purchasing cost ($) x 105

Fig. 8. The relation among different objective functions in PG&E 69-bus case.

The flowchart of proposed algorithm (2) The unit cost is set to 750 $/kW for WT and 2250 $/kW for
PV respectively in this paper. The unit operation and main-
The flow chart of the proposed algorithm in solving the optimal tenance cost C O&M i for WT and PV power are all set to
planning problem is illustrated in Fig. 5. 0.01 $/kW h. Cf is the fuel cost of thermal power plant to pro-
duce a unit of electricity, which is set to 0.0225 $/kW h.
Experiments and results Table 1 presents the parameters used for calculating various
costs in the simulation study. The emissions costs can be
Experiment setting referred from [23–25]. These values can be easily adjusted
according to the system under study and the local distribu-
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, the tion company.
algorithm was implemented to obtain solution for optimal sitting
and sizing of DGs. The INSGA-II is compared with Strength Pareto Experiment and result on PG&E 69-bus system
Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA2) [19] and Differential Evolution
Multi-objective Optimization (DEMO) [20]. The PG&E 69-bus [21] The single line diagram of modified PG&E 69-bus system is
and actual 292-, 588-, 1180-bus systems were considered. The illustrated in Fig. 6. In PG&E 69-bus system, the base power and
292-, 588- and 1180-bus systems [22] are selected from real urban the base voltage are 10 MVA and 12.66 kV, respectively. The corre-
DN in north of China. The peak loading data sets of test systems are sponding branch impedances and the average daily active and
utilized as the typical load data. The algorithm was implemented, reactive power can be found in [21]. The candidate node to be inte-
evaluated and compared in the following environments: grated with DG is from node 2 to 69. The rated unit power of each
wind and PV generation is set to 200 kW and 10 kW, respectively.
(1) The program of the proposed algorithm was developed in For simplicity, each DG is PQ type with a stable power factor 0.95,
Matlab. In the implementation of the INSGA-II algorithm, and penetration rate of DN is set to 35%.
the population number is 200; the maximal iteration num- The Pareto solution set of optimal placement and sizing of DG
ber is 100; the mutation factor gm and crossover factor gc using INSGA-II is illustrated in Fig. 7. The annual I&O range of DG
are all set to 20. The evolution parameters were mainly is [0, 2.89  105] $, the purchasing electricity cost range of is
referred from [17]. The penalty factors w1, w2 and w3 are [3.51  105, 5.57  105] $, the range of voltage deviation
all set to 50. The parameters in DEMO and SPEA2 are the is [1221, 5053], respectively. The best compromised solution is
same as the one in INSGA-II. extracted from Pareto set, and it is listed in Table 2.
 K.-y. Liu et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440 437

5
x 10 5500
6
Wind-Photovoltaic Wind-Photovoltaic
Wind 5000 Wind
Photovoltaic Photovoltaic
Annual purchasing cost ($)
5.5 4500

Voltage deviation
4000
5
3500

3000
4.5
2500

4 2000

1500
(a) (b)
3.5 1000
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Annual I&O cost of DG ($) x 105 Annual I&O cost of DG ($) x 105

Fig. 9. Influence analysis with different DG types.

As shown in Table 2, the best DG integration solution is as and PV-only generator, their slope values are 1.26 and 0.38,
follow: WT with two units at node 25, PV with fifteen units at node respectively. Although the fuel cost of bulk power plant is cheap,
53, WT with four units at node 50, PV with two units at node 27, the environmental value and imposed penalty price of pollution
respectively. Based on the optimization result, it can be drawn that gas lead to the enormous cost increase of thermal power plant with
most of DGs can be placed at the end of feeder, and the optimal the consideration of low-carbon economy. With the same purchas-
solution is the wind-PV combination power generation. ing electricity cost, the annual I&O cost of WT generator is much
lower than PV generator, which shows that the WT generator holds
The relation among different objectives in Pareto solution set higher economic benefit. The reason is that the investment cost of
WT generator is lower, and the matching degree of time sequence
The relations among different objective functions are illustrated characteristic between WT generator output and load demand is
in Fig. 8. Fig. 8a shows the relation between annual I&O cost of DG better. Compared with the different DG integration schemes, the
and annual purchasing electricity cost. It shows that the increase of WT-PV combination can achieve less power purchasing cost with
annual I&O cost of DG can efficiently decrease the purchasing cost. the same I&O cost, namely, the WT-PV combination provides more
The relation between annual I&O cost and voltage deviation is power output. This is because that the WT generator and PV
shown in Fig. 8b. It shows that the increase of the annual I&O cost generator are complementary with time sequence characteristic
of DG is beneficial to reduce voltage deviation, which proves the of loads. The combination has advantage of providing more annual
positive effect of DG integration to the voltage quality. Fig. 8c dis- energy output with the constraint of penetration rate.
plays the relation between annual purchasing electricity cost and As shown in Fig. 9b, the voltage deviation index will decrease no
voltage deviation. It shows that a higher purchasing electricity cost matter which type of DG is integrated into system. With the same
is not beneficial to the voltage quality. annual I&O cost, WT generator shows more significant effect than
PV generator on decreasing voltage deviation index, since WT
generator has better economic benefit and its power output has
Influence analysis by integrating different DG types better matching degree with the load demand on time sequence
characteristic. Compared with the WT-only or PV-only integration,
In order to investigate the influence caused by DG types in opti- the WT-PV combination achieves the best voltage deviation index,
mization results, three experiments in the PG&E 69-bus system are and the integration has more advantage in economic operation in
implemented: (I) the WT-PV combination is utilized; (II) only WT distribution system.
generators are considered; (III) only PV is considered in the plan-
ning. Optimization results of these three experiments are shown
in Fig. 9. The relation between annual I&O cost of DG and annual Case studies on larger distribution systems
purchasing electricity cost is shown in Fig. 9a. And the relation
between annual I&O cost of DG and voltage deviation is shown Three larger distribution systems, actual 292-bus, 588-bus and
in Fig. 9b. 1180-bus distribution systems are optimized to obtain their best
As shown in Fig. 9a, the purchasing electricity cost of DN will be DG integration. The parameters and optimization results are listed
cut down no matter which type of DG will be integrated into in Table 3. As shown in Table 3, DG integration leads to the
system. Comparing the trend curve between WT-only generator decrease of purchasing electricity cost and voltage deviation. For

Table 3
Optimization results of DG integration for larger distribution systems.

System Total active power load (MW) Allowed maximal number of DG Result before and after optimization
Annual DG I&O cost ($) Purchasing cost ($) Voltage deviation
292-bus 11.2557 8 Before 0 1.66  106 1.62  105
After 4.41  105 1.13  106 7.57  104
588-bus 15.8306 15 Before 0 2.36  106 5.37  105
After 9.71  105 1.50  106 1.81  105
1180-bus 22.2064 25 Before 0 3.36  106 1.01  106
After 1.79  106 2.17  106 4.88  105
438 K.-y. Liu et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440

there is more diversity of candidate solutions for large scale system

x 105 as well as more complexity in the optimization process.
4
Voltage deviation

Algorithms comparison
2

In order to compare the performance of the proposed algorithm,

0
comparisons have been made with DEMO and SPEA2. The popula-
-2 tion size and the maximal iteration number in these algorithms are
1.8 all the same. For each algorithm, thirty runs with different random
1.6
seeds have been carried out. And thirty Pareto solution sets have
6 been got. In the case of multi-objective optimization, the compar-
x 10 1.4 10
8 ison of searching performance is substantially more complex than
1.2 6 5 for single-objective optimization problem. Following comparisons
4 x 10
Annual purchasing cost ($) 2 are based on the spacing metric [26] and C index [27].
1 0 Annual I&O cost of DG ($)
(a)
Spacing metric
An ideal Pareto solution set is expected to have the evenly dis-
x 105 tributed performance on Pareto front. There will be better diversity
in selecting the best compromise solution from Pareto front if the
4
candidate solutions are in evenly distributed. In order to judge the
Voltage deviation

3 evenly distributed performance of Pareto solution set, the spacing

2 metric is defined as the distance variance of each solution to its
closest neighbor, which can be described as follows:
1 vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u
0 u 1 X NP
S¼t ðd  d Þ2 ð25Þ
2 i
NP  1 i¼1
1.8
6
x 10 14 where di is the distance of i-th individual to its closest neighbor and
12
1.6 10  is the mean of d among individuals. The calculation formulas of d
8 5 d i i
x 10
Annual purchasing cost ($) 6 and d  are described as follows:
1.4 4 Annual I&O cost of DG ($)
(b) (N )
X obj
jf m ðxi Þ  f m ðxj Þj
di ¼ min ð26Þ
m¼1
f m max  f m min

x 105 !,
X
NP
8 ¼
d di NP ð27Þ
Voltage deviation

i¼1
6
A smaller value of spacing metric means that the solutions in Pareto
4
solution set are more evenly distributed. And the value of zero for
2 spacing metric means that all solutions in Pareto solution set are
2.6 equally spaced. The box-plots of spacing metric values from differ-
2.5
2
ent multi-objective optimization algorithms are shown in Fig. 11.
6 2.4 Each box-plot represents distributions of spacing metric values in
x 10 1.8
2.3
x 10
6 thirty runs.
2.2 1.6
Annual I&O cost of DG ($)
Annual purchasing cost ($) 2.1 1.4
0.055
(c)

Fig. 10. (a) Pareto-optimal front of optimal planning on actual 292-bus system. (b) 0.05
Pareto-optimal front of optimal planning on actual 588-bus system. (c) Pareto-
optimal front of optimal planning on actual 1180-bus system. 0.045

0.04
S Metric

purchasing electricity cost and voltage deviation, there are

decreases of 31.93% and 53.27% in 292-bus system, 36.44% and 0.035
66.29% in 588-bus system, 35.42% and 51.68% in 1180-bus system.
Compared with the cost of fuel power plant considering the envi- 0.03
ronmental equivalent value and imposed penalty price of pollu-
tant, the annual I&O cost of WT generator is lower and the 0.025
annual I&O cost of PV generator is higher, so DG integration inevi-
0.02
tably causes the variation of the total cost of DN.
The Pareto solution sets of DG integration optimization for larg-
NSGA-II DEMO SPEA2
er distribution systems are shown in Fig. 10. Compared with the
Pareto set of optimization result for PG&E 69-bus test system, Fig. 11. The box-plots of spacing metrics values from different optimization
the Pareto set forms in a surface instead of a curve. It shows that algorithm.
 K.-y. Liu et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 69 (2015) 430–440
0.8
0.7
(a)
0.6
0.5
C Metric
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0 0
C(NSGA-II,DEMO) C(DEMO,NSGA-II)
Fig. 12. Algorithm comparison on C index.
As shown in Fig. 11, the exceptional value has been plotted as
outliers using ‘+’ in each box-plot. The top and bottom horizontal
lines present the boundary values except the outliers. The rectan-
gular box contains half of the spacing metric values, and the red
line within rectangular box shows the median for spacing metric
values in thirty runs. The proposed method can obtain the smallest
median spacing metric value (see red line). Compared with other
three algorithms, the proposed method has the minimal median
and minimum value in spacing metric. The bottom horizontal line
of INSGA-II is lower than the ones of other algorithms. So INSGA-II
has advantages in finding the evenly distributed solutions and the
Pareto set got by INSGA-II has better diversity in selecting the best
compromise solution.
C index
0
Definition 4: Let X , X 00 # X be two sets of decision vectors, the
function C maps the ordered pair ðX 0 ; X 00 Þ to be the interval [0,1]:
jfa00 2 X 00 ; 9a0 2 X 0 : a0  a00 gj
CðX 0 ; X 00 Þ ¼
jX 00 j
The value CðX 0 ; X 00 Þ ¼ 1 means that all solutions in X00 are
0
dominated by solutions in X . The opposite, C(X0 , X00 ) = 0, represents
the situation that none of solutions in X00 are covered by the set X0 .
Note that both C(X0 , X00 ) and C(X00 , X0 ) have to be considered, since
C(X0 , X00 ) is not necessarily equal to 1  C(X00 , X0 ).
As shown in Fig. 12, the C index values of the INSGA-II corre-
sponding to DEMO and SPEA2 are smaller enough. Fig. 12a means
that almost 60% solutions of DEMO are dominated by solutions of
INSGA-II. While there are only 10% solutions of INSGA-II dominat-
ed by the solutions of DEMO. The Fig. 12b also shows that the
INSGA-II has more excellent searching performance and better
Pareto-optimal front.
Conclusions
In this paper, a multi-objective optimization model of DG sitting
and sizing in DN is established using economic indicator and volt-
age deviation index. Experiments and comparisons have been
made on multiple test systems, and the efficiency of proposed
INSGA-II method is demonstrated. The in-depth discussion about
different types of DG integration is analyzed, and the superiority
of DG integration with WT-PV combination for distribution system
is testified. In practice, one is not always able to site DG at the loca-
tions determined by an optimization algorithm; however it gives
the planner a beneficial idea in the planning. The main contribu-
tions of this paper can be generalized as:
439
0.8
(b)
0.7
0.6
0.5
C Metric
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
C(NSGA-II,SPEA2) C(SPEA2,NSGA-II)
(1) Different with the previous research work on most of DG
planning method, the optimization technique considers time
sequence characteristics of DGs and loads. The planning
horizon has been considered in evaluating different planning
objectives.
(2) The optimization results suggest that considering multi-
objectives helps to decide placement and sizing of DG for
distribution system planners.
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