Solar Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Melaka 76100, Malaysia
Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Selangor 43000, Malaysia
Department of Energy Engineering and Environment, An-Najah National University, 97300 Nablus, Palestine
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 13 September 2016
Received in revised form 28 October 2016
Accepted 7 November 2016
Keywords:
Photovoltaic
Distributed generation
Heuristic techniques
Optimization
a b s t r a c t
This paper presents the application of heuristic optimization techniques for determining optimal placement and sizing of photovoltaic-based distributed generation (PVDG) in a distribution system. The objective functions of the optimization problem, consider a real power loss, voltage deviation, average voltage
total harmonic distortion (THD) and system average voltage dip magnitude (SAVDM). Various heuristic
optimization techniques were applied and compared in order to determine the optimum placements
and sizing of PVDG in IEEE 69-bus radial distribution system. This paper proposed the improved gravitational search algorithm (IGSA) and its performances are compared with two other algorithms such as the
gravitational search algorithm (GSA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). A comparison of the performances is also made using optimization techniques when PVDGs are fixed at critical buses. The test
results showed that IGSA outperformed GSA and PSO in finding the optimal PVDG locations and sizes.
2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction
Distributed generations (DGs) are small generating units that
are installed mainly, near the load centers and in strategic points
of the electric power distribution system. There are two types of
DGs which are inverter-based and non-inverter based DGs. Examples of technologies applied in DGs are micro-turbines, fuel cells,
wind and solar energy. DGs can be connected to satisfy consumers
local demand or supplying energy to the remaining of the electrical
system (Borges and Falcao, 2003). In order to sustain the benefits of
DG, the location, capacity, type and number of DGs must be optimum. Therefore, a feasibility study needs to be performed since a
power system may be affected by the DG installation. In Kadir
et al. (2014), a study was done to evaluate the power quality
impact of renewable type of DGs in a distribution system. Many
research works have been carried out to find the optimization
method for DG installation using analytical, numerical and
heuristic methods (Borges and Falcao, 2003).
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: saadahdaud@yahoo.com (S. Daud), fazliana@utem.edu.my
(A.F.A. Kadir), azah_mohamed@ukm.edu.my (A. Mohamed), t.khatib@najah.edu
(T. Khatib).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2016.11.013
0038-092X/ 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
220
and implementing a comparative study on three heuristic optimization techniques, namely, improved gravitational search algorithm (IGSA), PSO and GSA. The optimization problem considers
minimization of system real power loss, average voltage deviation,
average voltage total harmonic distortion (THDv) and system average voltage dip magnitude (SAVDM). A comparison is also made
with and without optimum location and capacity of PVDG in the
IEEE 69-bus radial distribution system. Methods such as NewtonRaphson load flow, harmonic load flow and method of fault position are combined with the heuristic optimization techniques to
obtain the best solution or optimum fitness function.
2. Problem formulation
An optimization problem can be defined as the maximization of
an objective function while satisfying a number of equality and
inequality constraints. A multi-objective optimization is formulated for optimum PVDG placement and sizing by minimizing total
power loss, voltage deviation, average THDv and system average
voltage dip magnitude (SAVDM), which is expressed as follows:
From Eq. (1), F can be defined as the fitness function, THDv is the
percentage of the average THDv, V dev is the percentage of voltage
deviation at all system buses, and SAVDM is the percentage of system average voltage dip magnitude. c is the coefficient of ploss , b is
the coefficient of THDv , v is the coefficient of V dev and g is the coefficient of SAVDM. The sum of the coefficient factor method is used
to decide the relative importance of the objectives in order to
obtain the best optimum solution. The coefficient factors are
assumed to be 0.25 each since all of the objectives are important
in order to install DGs with lower power loss, more stable voltage
and enhanced power quality.
The total real power loss, average THDv , V dev and SAVDM are
given by:
ploss
n
X
plossi
i1
Pm
THDv
V dev
i1 THDv i
V iref V i
Vi
SAVDM bi1
X ni
where
is the position of each ith agent, Size is the capacity of
PVDG, VC is the voltage control and Place is the location of the
PVDG.
The update of gravitational constant (G) is given by:
Gt G0
T t
T
10
fitnessi t worstt
bestt worstt
mi t
M i t Pn
j1 mj t
V min 6 jV i j 6 V max
V min is the lower bound and V max is the upper bound of bus voltage
limits. jV i j is the RMS value of the i th bus voltage and THDv max Is the
maximum permissible level at each bus, which is 5%.
X ni Size; VC; Place1 ; Size; VC; Place2 ;... ; Size;VC;Placen
mi t
for i 1; 2; . . . ; n
Pm
i1 VDAi
m
11
12
K best K best
final
T t
100 K best
T
final
13
M ij d
xj xdi
Rij e
r
2
XD
d
d
x
x
Rij X i ; X j 2
j
i
d1
F dij G
14
15
16
221
F di t
N
X
j2K best ;j i
randj F dij t
17
adi
F di
Mi
18
d
i t
1 randi v
v is given by:
d
i t
d
i t
19
xdi t 1 xdi t v di t 1
20
21
Gt G0
T t
T
F dij kki G
t 1 qt1 t; 0 6 1 6 1
22
Mi Mj d
xj xdi
Rij
23
222
case scenario of short-circuit phenomena considered is the threephase fault at all the buses in the system.
Voltage dip amplitude (VDA) which is the amplitude of the voltage dip is considered as the fault voltage approximated by the rectangular waveform placed at the minimum of the time evolution of
the RMS fault voltage (Carpinelli et al., 2007). VDA has to be kept
maximized in order to reduce the dip phenomenon. However, in
this optimization problem, all the objectives must be minimized
and therefore VDM term is being used instead. Fig. 2 illustrates
the different of VDA and VDM. The fault rate at the buses is
assumed to be 0.04 faults per year (Park et al., 2010). The stepby-step procedure of the FPM is shown in Fig. 3.
223
Case III: Two PVDGs are installed and sized optimally in the
test system.
Case IV: A single PVDG is placed at Bus 61 with optimum
capacity in the system. Bus 61 is the weakest bus in the system from voltage collapse point of view. In Kamaruzzaman
and Mohamed (2015), the ranking of the weak buses starts
from the weakest bus, Bus 61, Bus 68, Bus 45 and Bus 17.
Case V: Two PVDGs are placed at bus 61 and Bus 68 with
optimum capacity in the system.
5.1. Case I: base case
The test system is simulated using the MATPOWER software
program to determine the power loss and voltage deviation in
the system. The system is assumed to be free from harmonic distortion and no fault occurs in the system. The system power loss
at base case is found to be 0.23 MW and the base case average voltage deviation is 0.027%.
5.2. Case II: optimal placement and sizing of single PVDG
The optimization results for Case II are shown in Table 1 and the
convergence characteristics of IGSA, GSA and PSO are shown in
Fig. 4.
Table 2
Optimization results for Case III.
Table 1
Optimization results for Case II.
Algorithm
GSA
PSO
IGSA
64
53
1.636
1.367
1.0072
0.994
38
63
1.393
0.511
1.0078
0.992
47
21
0.854
1.845
1.0049
1.003
Algorithm
GSA
PSO
IGSA
Optimization results
PVDG1 location
PVDG1 Size (MW)
PVDG1 voltage (p.u)
3
1.925
0.9960
15
0.518
1.0008
65
0.937
1.0002
Optimization results
PVDG1 location
PVDG2 location
PVDG1 size (MW)
PVDG2 size (MW)
PVDG1 voltage (p.u)
PVDG2 voltage (p.u)
Performances
Worst fitness
Best fitness
Average fitness
Standard deviation
Average computational time (s)
0.335
0.322
0.327
0.004
306.23
0.336
0.322
0.327
0.003
305.87
0.332
0.322
0.326
0.002
305.53
Performances
Worst fitness
Best fitness
Average fitness
Standard deviation
Average computational time (s)
0.388
0.313
0.358
0.022
317.209
0.379
0.305
0.350
0.024
306.065
0.411
0.286
0.361
0.027
306.000
Overall impacts
Losses (%)
Voltage deviation (%)
THDv (%)
SAVDM (%)
0.195
0.0178
0.148
0.927
0.194
0.0174
0.149
0.929
0.195
0.0173
0.149
0.929
Overall impacts
Losses (%)
Voltage deviation (%)
THDv (%)
SAVDM (%)
0.083
0.0095
0.226
0.934
0.117
0.0099
0.161
0.934
0.037
0.010
0.163
0.934
Fig. 4. Convergence characteristics for single PVDG placement in IEEE 69-bus system.
224
Fig. 5. Convergence characteristics when two PVDGs are placed in IEEE 69-bus system.
GSA, PSO and IGSA give similar best fitness value of 0.3222. The
optimal placement for PVDG by GSA is at bus 3 with capacity of
1.925 MW and 0.996 p.u. voltage. For PSO, bus 15 is the optimal
PVDG placement with capacity of 0.518 MW and 1.0008 p.u. voltage. However, the solution for IGSA is that bus 65 is the optimal
PVDG location with optimal size of 0.937 MW and 1.0002 p.u.
Table 3
Optimization results for Case IV.
voltage. The average computational time taken for the three optimization techniques are almost the same. In term of accuracy, IGSA
is considered most accurate because it gives the lowest standard
Table 4
Optimization results for Case V.
Algorithm
GSA
PSO
IGSA
61
68
0.919
0.914
1.003
0.994
61
68
1.873
1.029
0.992
1.009
61
68
1.332
1.676
0.994
1.007
Algorithm
GSA
PSO
IGSA
Optimization results
PVDG1 location
PVDG1 size (MW)
PVDG1 voltage (p.u)
61
0.931
0.995
61
1.607
1.0089
61
1.429
1.0066
Optimization results
PVDG1 Location
PVDG2 location
PVDG1 size (MW)
PVDG2 size (MW)
PVDG1 voltage (p.u)
PVDG2 voltage (p.u)
Performances
Worst fitness
Best fitness
Average fitness
Standard deviation
Average computational time (s)
0.353
0.349
0.351
0.0008
307.280
0.354
0.349
0.351
0.0010
358.734
0.352
0.349
0.350
0.0008
300.241
Performances
Worst fitness
Best fitness
Average fitness
Standard deviation
Average computational time (s)
0.396
0.382
0.388
0.0039
361.542
0.401
0.383
0.389
0.0048
348.904
0.397
0.381
0.389
0.0042
347.197
Overall impacts
Losses (%)
Voltage deviation (%)
THDv (%)
SAVDM (%)
0.109
0.0102
0.345
0.934
0.113
0.0102
0.341
0.934
0.110
0.0102
0.344
0.934
Overall impacts
Losses (%)
Voltage deviation (%)
THDv (%)
SAVDM (%)
0.058
0.0058
0.527
0.935
0.129
0.0049
0.462
0.935
0.093
0.0064
0.489
0.935
Fig. 6. Convergence characteristics when one PVDG is placed at bus 61 in IEEE 69-bus system.
225
Fig. 7. Convergence characteristics when two PVDGs are placed at bus 61 and bus 68 in IEEE 69-bus system.
value than PSO and GSA. IGSA is more reliable with the optimum
fitness function of 0.3781.
From the results of all cases, it can be shown that installing
PVDG at the optimum location and capacity can minimize system
losses and therefore contribute to a more dependable power distribution system. It is noted that IGSA gives better performance compared to PSO in terms of computational time and more accurate
solutions. The results of the IGSA is better when PVDGs are placed
at the critical buses because power loss and voltage deviation are
greatly reduced. However, the average THD are slightly higher
for these cases (case IV and V) and therefore not appropriate for
power quality improvement.
6. Conclusion
A comparative study has been carried out to evaluate the performance of IGSA, GSA and PSO in determining the optimal placement and sizing of PVDG in a distribution system. IGSA is an
improved heuristic optimization technique that has several advantages such as adaptive learning rate, better execution and fast convergence in finding the optimal solution. The objective function of
the optimization considers total real power loss, average voltage
deviation, average THDv and average voltage dip magnitude. From
the results, IGSA outperformed PSO and GSA with better and accurate solution in a faster time. The number of iterations play an
important role in order to obtain a stabilized and most accurate
values. All of the cases plotted the improvement values of the fitness function as the number of iteration increases. This paper also
shows that it is better to search for an optimum locations and sizes
of PVDG in the system, instead of fixing the locations based on a
certain issue such as the voltage collapse point of view.
Acknowledgments
This research work was supported by Univetsiti Teknikal
Malaysia Melaka, Malaysia, under research Grant No. RAGS/2014/
TK03/FKE/B00048, and the Ministry of Education of Malaysia. The
first author would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka under UTeM
Zamalah Scheme.
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