Multi-Objective PSO-Based Capacitor Allocation for Loss Reduction and Voltage Enhancement

Abstract

Active power loss and voltage drop remain critical in radial distribution networks with high reactive-power demand. This study determines the locations and sizes of 2 capacitor banks in the IEEE 33-bus system using a 2-objective MOPSO that minimizes active power loss and total voltage deviation. An independent verification used the MATPOWER case33bw static full-load dataset and backward/forward-sweep power flow. Thirty runs (seeds 1001-1030) were executed with 100 particles, 50 iterations, capacitor ratings of 0-1500 kVAr in 5-kVAr steps, total compensation no greater than 2300 kVAr, and voltage limits of 0.95-1.05 p.u. The final feasible archives were pooled, duplicate solutions removed, and Pareto dominance reapplied. A compromise was selected deterministically by normalized Euclidean distance to the ideal point. The verification produced 438 pooled non-dominated solutions and selected 1015 kVAr at bus 15 and 1285 kVAr at bus 30. Relative to the independently computed base case, active power loss declined from 202.677 to 165.229 kW (18.477%), total voltage deviation fell from 1.701 to 0.864 p.u. (49.185%), and minimum voltage rose from 0.913 to 0.957 p.u. All 30 run-level compromises selected buses 15 and 30, indicating stable locations under the specified model and seeds. The study contributes a traceable repeated-run verification and deterministic compromise-selection procedure; field validation remains necessary before deployment.