Bio-inspired Optimization Techniques for Compensation Reactive Power and Voltage Profile Improvement in the Syrian Electrical Distribution Systems

Maintaining acceptable levels of the voltage level in distribution networks under different operating conditions is an urgent and essential requirement to achieve the power quality. Moreover, the reactive power compensation especially using the shunt capacitors is the most common solution for the improvement of the voltage profile in the distribution systems. Recently, for determining the optimal allocations and sizes of shunt capacitors, several algorithms and techniques have been applied. This paper presents the application of three optimization algorithms: The Ant Lion Optimizer, Flower Pollination Algorithm and the Particle Swarm Optimization for determining the optimal allocations of capacitors in the distribution system of 66/20 kV Lattakia- Syria, in order to improve the voltage profile and to reduce the power losses. The connection between nature-inspired algorithms and the powergui (Graphical user interface) block of the electrical distribution systems in the Matlab/Simulink is presented in this paper. Furthermore, a comprehensive comparison between these algorithms has been introduced in this work. The results show that the proposed algorithms ALO and FPA demonstrate its superiority.