Optimal capacitor placement in Three-Phase distribution systems using improved harmony search algorithm

Capacitors in power systems are used to supply reactive power for the purpose of loss minimization and voltage profile improvement. Besides, appropriate placement of capacitors is also important so as to ensure that system power loss and total capacitor costs is reduced. Most of the capacitor placement techniques assume that the system is balanced and ignore the effect of harmonics. In this paper, an improved harmony search (IHS) algorithm is applied to solve the optimal capacitor placement problem. The performance of the proposed HS algorithm is validated on a three-phase 9-bus distribution system by considering mutual coupling, load unbalancing and harmonics. The obtained capacitor placement results using IHS are compared with particle swarm optimization to demonstrate its effectiveness.