Optimal capacitor placement in radial distribution networks

The capacitor placement (replacement) problem for radial distribution netwo rks determines capacitor types, sizes, locations and control schemes. Optim al capacitor placement is a hard combinatorial problem that can be formulat ed as a mixed integer nonlinear program. Since this is a NP complete proble m (Non Polynomial time) the solution approach uses a combinatorial search a lgorithm. The paper proposes a hybrid method drawn upon the Tabu Search app roach, extended with features taken from other combinatorial approaches suc h as genetic algorithms and simulated annealing, and from practical heurist ic approaches. The proposed method has been tested in a range of networks a vailable in the literature with superior results regarding both quality and cost of solutions.