Capacitor placement in distribution systems using heuristic search strategies

Heuristic search strategies are used to determine the optimum capacitor placement and ratings for distribution systems. In the heuristic approach proposed a small number of critical nodes, named sensitive nodes, are selected for installing capacitors that optimise the net savings while achieving a large overall loss reduction. This method insures that voltage constraints are met. This heuristic approach is suitable for large distribution systems and can be useful in online implementation. The proposed approach is applied to a test system and the results are compared with other published techniques.