Facilitating Placement of the Reactive Compensators Using a Revised Impedance Matrix

Abstract

Determining placement and capacity of reactive-power compensators in distribution networks is an optimization problem with various objectives and technical constraints. The large number of variables and constraints in this problem can be an obstacle for the success of classical and meta-heuristic optimization methods. Therefore, having a guess of the suitable buses for installing compensators as an initial solution, improves performance of the mentioned methods. Using the network impedance matrix, an initial guess is obtained in this paper in the form of suitable or higher-priority buses. The applied matrix is a revised version in which loads connected to the buses are taken into account. The reasons for considering the loads are that, firstly, the list of bus-priorities becomes more consistent with network load pattern, and secondly, difficulties in forming the impedance matrix in radial distribution networks are obviated. Comparison of the list of suitable buses for installing the compensator obtained by the proposed method with the list of buses extracted from the sensitivity analysis indicates the effectiveness of the former method.