Optimal allocation and sizing of multiple DG and capacitor banks considering load variations using water cycle algorithm

Transmission losses are of major distress in fossil fuel fired conventional centralized methods of power generation. Distributed generation (DG) decreases the transmission losses as it generates power near the load centers. Maintenance of low reactive power level and a good voltage profile at all buses are big concern now-a-days. In this work, optimal allocation and sizing of DG and reactive power compensation (with VAR compensator) problems have been solved by a newly developed optimizer named water cycle algorithm (WCA) to minimize transmission losses.