Optimal location and sizing of distributed generation using particle swarm optimization with mutation strategy

• Main Author: Wong, Lye Yee
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) 2014
• Subjects: Distributed generation; Loss minimization; Particle swarm optimzation; Distribution system
• Online Access: http://dspace.unimap.edu.my:80/dspace/handle/123456789/33131
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Perlis

The current energy crisis has led to the increasing demand of environmental-friendly and high efficient energy. On top of all the solutions, distributed generation (DG) is one of the solutions that is capable to overcome this problem. The impact of DG towards the distribution system is significant where it can be used to improve the system reliability and efficiency such as improving the voltage profile, reducing the total power losses, etc. The optimal location and size of DG is very important in order to obtain the maximum output from the DG allocation. Many researchers found out that solutions using metaheuristic methods yield a better result compared to the conventional analytical method. In this thesis, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) combined with the mutation strategy (PSO-MS) method is proposed in solving the DG allocation problem with the purpose of minimizing the total real power loss and improving the voltage profile of the system. This is to prevent the stagnancy of the particles’ population that usually happens in PSO algorithm. A set of comprehensive simulations have been carried out to validate the performance of the proposed method where they are categorized into small system (24-bus distribution system), medium system (33-bus distribution system), and large system (69-bus distribution system) for single DG and 2 DGs installation. The simulation results of the PSO-MS method are then compared with PSO and Genetic Algorithm (GA) method in order to validate the performance of the proposed method. From the results, it is shown that the proposed method has successfully obtained the optimal DG location and size. As for the comparative study with PSO and GA, the PSO-MS method also yields a better performance in terms of total real power loss, voltage profile and simulation time.