Optimal Reactive Power Compensation For Loss Reduction In Electrical Distribution System

Abstract

The reactive component of the current in an electrical line causes power losses, voltage drop and thus reduce the transfer of active power. This thesis presents the way of improving the distribution system performance by minimizing the reactive current flowing through the distribution networks with optimally allocating shunt capacitors. The optimal shunt capacitor allocation problem is the determination of the location and size of the capacitor to be placed in distribution networks in an optimal manner to reduce the energy losses and peak power losses of the networks. Single capacitor is connected at each bus and repetitive loss minimization technique is applied to identify the nodes to be compensated. Optimizing the loss saving equations with respect to the capacitor size for multiple capacitors is used to identify the global capacitor size needed for compensation. To obtain the energy savings, a power flow for radial distribution network is executed using MATLAB programs before and after compensation. The study of this work was conducted on primary distribution feeder having 34 buses of Maichew town power distribution system