A New Framework for Active Loss Reduction and Voltage Profile Enhancement in a Distributed Generation-Dominated Radial Distribution Network

In recent times, a significant amount of power loss and system instability due to high voltage deviation experienced by modern power systems, in addition to the pressing issues challenging the power industry such as pollution—especially the emission of greenhouse gases—and aging infrastructures, have posed a serious threat to system operations. Distributed generation has been identified as one main solution capable of reducing pollution when solar and wind power are used and, hence, rejuvenating dilapidated infrastructures and redeeming climatic changes. This paper presents a novel two-stage approach for the identification of suitable locations for DG placement and the sizing of DG for loss reduction and voltage stability enhancement. The first stage explored the use of a network structure to develop a coupling factor (CF) approach that was non-iterative in nature to determine suitable DG locations. In the second stage, the size of the DG was determined using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The main objective was to obtain an optimal voltage profile of the system under consideration while lowering the power loss in the system and ensuring network stability amidst DG incorporation. The model design, optimization and simulation were carried out using the MATLAB 2016a environment and the IEEE 33-bus test system, in which DG was integrated. The influence of increasing the level of DG placement in the system was then investigated. The forward/backward sweep method was applied to monitor the optimization process. The voltage profiles for both the base case when no DG was integrated and the case of incremental DG integration were considered. The results obtained for both single and multiple DG integration are compared with those obtained using the existing methods. The results show the efficiency and applicability of the new non-iterative scheme in the quick identification of DG locations for voltage profile enhancement and network real power loss reduction in radial distribution networks.