462
1, FEBRUARY 2009
Optimal Capacitor Allocation in a Distribution
System Considering Operation Costs
Jong-Young Park, Jin-Man Sohn, and Jong-Keun Park, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper proposes the planning method for capac-
itor installation in a distribution system to reduce the installation
costs and minimize the loss of electrical energy. The expected life-
time of devices with moving parts depends on the total number
of operations, which affects the replacement period and replace-
ment decisions for aging equipment under a limited budget. In
this paper, the expected device lifetimes are included in the for-
mulation, and the optimal operation status of the devices is deter-
mined using a genetic algorithm. The optimal numbers and loca-
tions for capacitor installation are determined based on the optimal
operation status. Simulation results in a 69-bus distribution system
show that the proposed technique performs better than conven-
tional methods.
Index Terms—Distribution system, genetic algorithm, operation
cost, planning, shunt capacitor, under-load tap changer.
I. INTRODUCTION
S HUNT capacitors are installed for a variety of reasons in
industrial, distribution, and transmission systems. Fixed or
switched shunt capacitors are mainly used to reduce resistive
power losses and to control the level of voltage supplied to
the customer. This is achieved by reducing or eliminating the
voltage drop in the system caused by inductive or reactive loads.
Interest has been increasing in identifying the type, size, and lo-
cation of shunt capacitors using optimization techniques. Such
techniques systematically attempt to balance two types of utility
costs in the planning, operation, and design process: the cost of
capital investment and maintenance and the cost of power or en-
ergy losses.
The utilization and aging of power system equipment is an
emergent issue with the restructuring and privatization of utili-
ties, regulators, and other market participants. A compromise is
required between overloading and underutilization; overloading
increases the loss of life and the probability of premature failure,
while underutilization is considered a redundancy or a waste. In
the planning process, if the lifetime of equipment with moving
parts, such as under-load tap changer (ULTC) transformers or
Manuscript received December 12, 2007; revised August 25, 2008. Current
version published January 21, 2009. This work was supported by a grant from
the Center for Applied Superconductivity Technology of the 21st Century Fron-
tier R&D Program funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Tech-
nology, Republic of Korea. Paper no. TPWRS-00931-2007.
J.-Y. Park is with the Electric Power Research Division, Korea Electrotech-
nology Research Institute (KERI), Changwon, Korea (e-mail: drago@snu.ac.
kr).
J.-M. Sohn is with the LS Industrial System, Anyang, Korea (e-mail:
jmsohn@plaza.snu.kr).
J.-K. Park is with the School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National Uni-
versity, Seoul, Korea.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2008.2009489
0885-8950/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 24, NO.
switched capacitors, is considered, replacement can be deferred,
which is extremely important under limited budget conditions.
Extensive research has been conducted on the problem of op-
timal capacitor allocation. Initially, the voltage-independent re-
active current model was widely used in the formulation and
was solved using analytical methods [1]–[3].
Later, a general formulation was applied to balance invest-
ment costs, the cost of energy or power losses, as well as con-
straints such as voltage limits, budget limits, and the number
of fixed or switched capacitors. Many applications use iterative
methods [4]–[11] in which optimization is not used, but the best
option can be selected by evaluating a limited number of candi-
dates while maintaining the constraints. More recently, attention
has focused on the use of optimization techniques [12]–[29].
Approaches include mixed-integer nonlinear programming [12]
and graph theory [15], [16]. With more extensive constraints, the
optimal capacitor allocation problem can be solved using tabu-
search algorithms [13], [14], simulated annealing [17], [18], and
genetic algorithms (GAs) [19]–[29].
The main objective considered in this paper is the reduction of
installation costs and real power losses, which is similar to that
of other research. However, the effect of device lifetime on the
switching operation of devices such as ULTC transformers or
switched capacitors is added in the objective function as a func-
tion of the annual number of operations of the device. The annu-
alized installation costs depend on the device lifetimes, which
comprise a function of the total number of operations.
Candidate buses for installing capacitors are determined
using sensitivity analysis [8], [9], [17], [20], and annual load
forecasts are approximated in several sections for planning
purposes. Then, the optimal operation of all devices for each
section is determined by a GA. The number of capacitors to
be installed is calculated based on this optimal operation. This
reduces both the total annual cost of installation for the devices
and the real power losses. The proposed method was imple-
mented on a 69-bus radial distribution system and compared to
the conventional method.
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION
The main objective of the capacitor allocation problem is to
minimize installation costs and energy losses. However, the life-
times of capacitors and tap changers, as well as their annualized
installation costs, vary with the number of operations. There-
fore, considering the operation of each device is reasonable in
calculating the installation costs of devices for efficient plan-
ning. This paper formulates an objective function that considers
the lifetime of each device as a practical measure to reduce total
installation costs.
PARK et al.: OPTIMAL CAPACITOR ALLOCATION IN A DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM CONSIDERING OPERATION COSTS 463

The relationship between the incremental loss and the Jaco-

bian is given by [6] as

then

(8)

Hence

(9)

where and are the submatrices

of .
Fig. 1. Daily load and load duration curve corresponding to it. (a) Daily load.
(b) Load duration curve.
The buses are ordered in descending order according to their
value calculated above. The top two or three buses in each lateral
branch are selected as candidate locations.
A. Load Forecast and System Data The control variables for capacitor allocation problems are
The load pattern plays an important role in the efficient instal- generally locations and capacities of capacitors. However, the
lation of capacitors in a distribution system. Because using exact number of operations of each device is required to calculate the
load data in the planning phase is difficult, forecast data must lifetime in the proposed method. The variables for the operation
be used. In this paper, the annual load is divided into three cat- status of devices are defined as
egories: summer, winter, and spring/fall, and each load section
category has a daily load pattern. A load duration curve (LDC) is
..
created for each daily load pattern, then each LDC is partitioned .
into three load levels as shown in Fig. 1. As a result, the annual .. ..
load is classified into nine sections, which is represented by . .. .
.
(1)
(10)
(2)
(11)
The candidate buses where capacitors are installed are deter-
mined by sensitivity analysis, which helps to reduce the search where is a number of capacitors connected to bus in the
space for the optimization procedure. The sensitivity analysis th section, is the tap position of the ULTC during the th
selects the buses with maximum impact on the real power losses section, is the total number of candidate buses for installation,
in the system with respect to the nodal reactive power. and is the total number of sections. All the capacitors used in
The complex power loss is given by this paper are standard capacitors with the same capacity.
The number of capacitors to be installed at each bus is de-
(3) termined by in (10). The number of fixed capacitors and
and hence switched capacitors at each bus is calculated by

(4) (12)
(13)
The sensitivity of the real power losses in the system with
respect to the nodal reactive power is given by where and are the numbers of fixed and switched capac-
itors, respectively, installed on bus . The number of installed
(5) capacitors is used to calculate the installation costs.
With and , the number of operations for each device can
Taking the partial derivatives of with respect to and also be inferred by the periodicity of the load change during a
gives day. The load level changes from in Fig. 1(b) to
passing through , and then changes again to
(6) during a day. The operation status of each load level changes
accordingly, as shown in Fig. 2. Based on this assumption, the
number of daily operations of each device is computed by
(7)
(14)

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464 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 24, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2009

where is the annual interest rate and is the installation cost

of a device. The present value for the annualized installation
cost, is

(18)

Fig. 2. Change of operation status during a day. The present values of (17) and (18) should be the same, so
that the annualized cost, is

(19)

where

(20)

Fig. 3. Number of operations and lifetime of the device.

is the annualizing coefficient for the installation cost of a device.
With this result, the annualized installation cost, is

where is the number of daily operations of the th device

during the th section. The annual number of operations is com-
puted by (21)
(15)
where , , and are the installation costs of the ULTC,
the switched capacitor, and the fixed capacitor, respectively; ,
where is the annual number of operations of the th device , and are the expected lifetime of the ULTC, the switched
and is the number of days during the th section. capacitor, and the fixed capacitor, respectively; and and
The annual number of operations in (15) is accurate enough are the annual number of operations of the ULTC and the th ca-
for planning distribution systems although it may differ from pacitor, respectively. The terms in (21) represent the annualized
the actual number of operations. The number of capacitors to be installation costs of the ULTC, the switched capacitor, and the
installed in (12) and (13) and the annual number of operations fixed capacitor; the lifetimes of the fixed capacitors are a con-
each device in (15) are used to calculate the installation costs in stant value, .
the proposed planning method. The cost for real power losses, , with the operation of
devices by and is calculated as
B. Cost Functions
The annualized installation costs for each device vary ac- (22)
cording to the lifetime of the device, and the number of oper-
ations influences the lifetime of the device. Switched capacitors where is the price of real energy ($/kWh), is the number
and a ULTC have a rated lifetime and a maximum number of of days during the th section, and is the daily real
operations. Assuming that the expected lifetime of a device is energy losses during the th section with the operation of de-
inversely proportional to its number of operations, the expected vices by and (kWh/day).
lifetime of th device, is As a result, the objective function for the capacitor
allocation problem is
(16)

where is the rated lifetime of the device and is the

maximum number of operations. As shown in Fig. 3, if the an-
nual number of operations is less than , the device
works during its full rated lifetime; otherwise, its lifetime is re-
duced as in (16). In the proposed method, the expected lifetime (23)
model in any form other than (16) can be used.
Given the expected lifetime of devices and the annualized such that
installation cost, is calculated as follows. The present value
for all periodic installations of a device with the period of its
lifetime, is

(17)

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PARK et al.: OPTIMAL CAPACITOR ALLOCATION IN A DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM CONSIDERING OPERATION COSTS 465

where is the power flow equation during

the th section; and are the allowable minimum
and maximum voltages, respectively; is the voltage mag-
nitude at bus during the th section; is the maximum
number of installed capacitors on a bus; and are
the minimum and maximum tap positions of the ULTC, respec-
tively; and is the maximum number of daily operations
of the th device.
The objective function in (23), which deals with the decaying
lifetime effect of equipment, can be applied to the capacitor al-
location problem using other methodologies to produce more Fig. 4. Flowchart to find the optimal solution by genetic algorithm.
realistic solutions.

III. SOLUTION METHODS

In this paper, the solution for the optimization problem of (23)
is determined by a GA. GAs are simple, robust, flexible, and able
to find the global optimal solution. They are especially useful
in finding solutions to problems in which other deterministic
methods encounter difficulties [25].
Variables and in (10) and (11) are coded into chromo-
somes for finding optimal solutions using a GA. All variables
in the problem have integer values, so chromosome is repre-
sented by a string of integers instead of a string of binary num-
bers to make the GA easier to manipulate. The structure of each
chromosome is Fig. 5. Candidate buses for capacitor installation in 69-bus radial distribution
system.

TABLE I
.. .. .. PRICES OF CAPACITORS AND ULTC
. . .

(24)

where corresponds to in (10), corresponds to in

(11), is the maximum number of installed capacitors at
bus , and and are the minimum and maximum tap
positions of the ULTC, respectively. The length of chromosome
is , and all integer genes correspond directly to
each variable.
The evaluation function for the GA, , is
TABLE II
RATED LIFETIME AND MAXIMUM OPERATION NUMBERS
(25)

where is the penalty function for the constraints.

Each solution in the initial randomly created population is
evaluated by (25) and selected by rank. Then, a population is re-
produced by one-point crossover and mutation. The newly cre-
ated population is evaluated, and this generational process is re-
peated until a termination condition has been reached. Fig. 4
transformer is at the distribution substation [24], [29]. The ca-
shows the process used to find the optimal solution using the
pacity of each capacitor is 300 kvar. The installation costs for
GA.
capacitors and ULTC are shown in Table I [30]. The rated life-
times and the maximum number of operations for devices are
IV. APPLICATION shown in Table II based on the actual data used by the Korean
The 69-bus distribution system shown in Fig. 5 was used to Electric Power Corporation [31]. The ULTC was assumed to
evaluate the performance of the proposed method, in which the have 21 taps within a range of , and the load to consist of
transmission system is modeled as an infinite bus and an ULTC 50% constant power and 50% constant impedance.

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466 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 24, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2009

TABLE III TABLE V

CLASSIFICATION DATA FOR ANNUAL LOAD FORECAST DATA IN SIMULATIONS PLANNING BY THE PROPOSED METHOD (CASE 2)

TABLE IV
PLANNING BY THE CONVENTIONAL METHOD (CASE1)

TABLE VI
DETAILED DATA FOR ANNUALIZED COSTS FOR TWO CASES

The annual assumed load for the simulations is shown in

Table III, where the amount of load is expressed as a factor of
the base load data in [24], and the total load of the base load data
is 11 375.7 kW and 8080.8 kvar. The capacity of the transformer
was not considered in the simulations. The eight candidate buses
for capacitor installation, those that had the largest sensitivity
values, were determined as shown in Fig. 5 using (9). The size
of variables and were (8 9) and (1 9), respectively, so
the length of chromosome in (24) for the GA was 81 integers.
The conventional planning method, which does not consider
the device lifetime, was compared to the proposed method in a
simulation. The expected lifetime of a device in (21) is treated
as constant in the conventional method, but calculated by (16) from it are shown. The annualized installation costs are calcu-
in the proposed method taking into account the number of op- lated by (21) with the expected device lifetimes. Table VI shows
erations of a device. the detailed data for all costs, including the expected lifetimes
Planning for capacitor allocation in the 69-bus distribution and annualized installation costs for each device and the costs
system was conducted by both the conventional method (Case of the real power loss in each case.
1) and the proposed method (Case 2), and then the results were The significant difference between the two cases is the
compared. Tables IV and V show the optimal solutions deter- number of operations of the ULTC and the resulting expected
mined by the conventional and proposed methods respectively; lifetime. With the conventional method, the number of opera-
the GA solution and the number of installed capacitors derived tions did not affect the value of the objective function, so the

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PARK et al.: OPTIMAL CAPACITOR ALLOCATION IN A DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM CONSIDERING OPERATION COSTS
solution minimized only the power losses with fixed installation
costs. The numbers of installed capacitors for the two cases
were different at buses 50, 55, 62, and 65. The total annualized
cost for Case 2 differed from that of Case 1 by US $2824, which
is about 10% of the annualized installation costs, although the
cost of power losses increased slightly. The expected lifetime of
the ULTC was 27 years in Case 1 and 30 years in Case 2. Thus,
the rated lifetime of the ULTC was extended by about three
years and the annualized cost was reduced by the proposed
method. The average lifetime of switched capacitors was 17.14
years in Case 1 and 19.57 years in Case 2, so the annualized
installation costs of capacitors also decreased.
Using the proposed method for capacitor allocation planning
did not make a large difference in the number of capacitors (the
difference was 4), but the total annualized cost, which is the sum
of costs for device installation and the real power losses, was
reduced considerably despite increases in real power losses.
In addition, the quantification of the number of device opera-
tions in the proposed method is useful in the operations phase as
well as the planning phase. In many previous papers on control
methods for reactive power, the number of operations was con-
sidered in the optimization. However, representing the number
of operations as a function of cost is difficult, so that a fuzzy
formulation was usually used to formulate an objective func-
tion that included the number of operations with the other costs
such as the energy cost. With (16)–(21), the number of opera-
tions can be considered as the cost so that it can be included in
the objective function directly without fuzzification. As a result,
the optimization of the control for reactive power can be more
definite with the consistent objective function.
V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper proposed a planning method for capacitor alloca-
tion in a distribution system considering the change in the annu-
alized device installation costs. The annualized costs are related
to the lifetime of devices, which is related to the number of oper-
ations. The relationship between the number of operations and
the expected lifetime was formulated, and the total annualized
costs, including the installation costs and the costs for real en-
ergy losses, were calculated using that relationship. The optimal
solution for costs was determined using a GA.
The proposed method was applied to a 69-bus radial distribu-
tion system with an ULTC transformer, and the result was com-
pared to that of the conventional method in which the lifetime of
devices is not considered. The results show that the annualized
costs were lower with the capacitor allocation determined by the
proposed method. The aging of equipment with moving parts
can be reduced and replacement deferred, so that the proposed
method will be an effective tool for distribution system planning
and design under limited budget constraints. The formulation of
the annualized installation cost can be applied to other capacitor
allocation methods to make those solutions more realistic.
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Jong-Young Park received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Seoul Na-
tional University, Seoul, Korea, in 1999, 2001, and 2007, respectively.
Currently, he is a Senior Researcher at the Korea Electrotechnology Research
Institute (KERI). His research interests include the control of reactive power, IT
applications to energy management systems, and the application of the super-
conducting fault current limiter in power systems.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 24, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2009
Jin-Man Sohn received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Seoul National
University, Seoul, Korea, in 1994, 1996, and 2006, respectively.
He worked at Hyundai Engineering Co., Ltd. and Hyundai Engineering and
Construction Co., Ltd. from 1996 to 2000 and was a Researcher at the Korea
Electrical Engineering and Science Research Institute from 2000 to 2003. He
is currently a Senior Research Engineer at LS Industrial Systems Co., Ltd. His
research interests include the reliability and power quality in distribution net-
works and IT applications to energy management systems.
Jong-Keun Park (SM’98) was born in YuSeong, Korea, on October 21, 1952.
He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Seoul National Uni-
versity, Seoul, Korea, in 1973 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engi-
neering from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1979 and 1982, respec-
tively.
He worked as a Researcher at the Toshiba Heavy Apparatus Laboratory in
1982. He was a Visiting Professor with the Technology and Policy Program
and Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems, Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology, Cambridge, in 1992. He is currently a Professor in the
School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University.
Dr. Park is a Senior Member of the Japan Institute of Electrical Engineers
(JIEE). In addition, he is presently acting as a Fellow of the Institution of Elec-
trical Engineers (IEE) and is a Life Member of the Korean Institute of Electrical
Engineers (KIEE) and the Korean representative of the study committee SC5
“Electricity Markets and Regulation” in CIGRE.