Application of Firefly Algorithm to the Optimal Siting and Sizing of D-STATCOM in Distribution Networks

This paper presents a Firefly Algorithm (FA) to the optimal siting and sizing of (D-STATCOM) in distribution networks for power loss minimization and voltage profile enhancement. The distribution network power flow model is developed based on the Bus Injected to Branch Current matrix (BIBC) technique whereas voltage deviations and power limits at individual buses are the optimization constraints. The performance of the Firefly algorithm is investigated using the MATLAB R2019b and the effectiveness tested on IEEE 33-Bus system for steady-state constant load model. The result shows a total loss of 281.59kW for the base case and 185.65kW with D-STATCOM incorporated and a percentage reduction in active and reactive power loss of 34.14% and 34.76% respectively and a corresponding D-STATCOM size of 1577kVar at bus 30. On Doma 69-bus network, the simulation shows an improvement in voltage profile of 17.88% and a reduction of 6.2% and 28.8% of both active and reactive power loss respectively. The size of the D-STATCOM is found to be 2750kVar at bus number 21. The method is validated with the Improved Bacterial Foraging Algorithm (IBFA) and the Bacterial Foraging Algorithm (BFA) on the IEEE 33-bus standard test network.