Capacitor placement in radial distribution networks based on identification of high potential busses

In capacitor placement problem, since problem dimension is high and there are many local optima, optimization techniques may be trapped in local optima. Identification of high potential busses for capacitor placement leads to reducing search space and approaching to optimal solution especially for large distribution networks. This study proposes a new approach based on power loss index to identify high potential busses for capacitor placement in radial distribution networks. After identification of high potential busses (phase 1), a recently developed metaheuristic technique, crow search algorithm, is utilized for solving the optimization problem (phase 2). On test systems, simulation results confirm the usefulness of the proposed approach in comparison with the other methodologies.