Loss minimization and voltage profile enhancement of distribution system with the integration of renewable distributed generation and capacitor

The continuation of load demand increment in the distribution system and its consequences on the voltage deviation and distribution system loss have a negative impact on system quality. Distributed generation (DG) and capacitor bank can be considered the most suitable enhancement devices for these problems if they are allocated appropriately in the distribution system. In this paper, the impacts of renewable DG and capacitor bank on power loss and voltage profile of Adama real distribution substation in Ethiopia with four scenarios of DG and capacitor interconnection are investigated. In each scenario, the performances of interconnected DG and capacitor in terms of voltage and power losses are analyzed through simulation in Electrical Transient Analyzer Program (ETAP).Voltage sensitivity index (VSI) and genetic algorithm (GA) implemented in ETAP software is utilized to determine the optimal location and sizing of DG and capacitors. Results showed that a substantial reduction in active power losses and voltage profile improvement is achieved with a combination of DG and capacitor bank compared to DG and capacitor separately. The reduction of active power loss percentage is reached to 52%.The cost that is associated with power loss is minimized by 51.7 %. Also it was found that based on the time taken for the analysis, GA technique implemented in ETAP is slightly effective than VSI variational algorithm methods for capacitor sizing.