A ScPSO based Multi-Objective Approach for Optimal Placement and Sizing of multiple DSTATCOMs in Unbalanced Distribution Network

Optimal DSTATCOM placement and sizing are crucial for power loss reduction, voltage profile improvement, balancing voltage, and economic burden alleviation on utility. Practical distribution networks are often unbalanced and finding optimal solutions with integrated devices requires an efficient algorithm. The standard PSO and ABC algorithms are slow and often stuck in local optima. This paper proposes a multi-objective Scout based PSO (MO-ScPSO) approach that integrates Scout phase of ABC into PSO. The approach is applied to achieve optimal DSTATCOM placement and sizing with the objective of reducing total real power loss, enhancing voltage profiles and mitigate voltage unbalance in the network and thus improving total annual cost savings. Simulations are conducted on the 25 – bus and IEEE 37 – bus test systems, demonstrating the proposed approach’s robustness and fast convergence rate.