Abstract

The integration of renewable-based distributed generation (DG) in distribution networks is increasingly common worldwide due to fossil fuel depletion, environmental pollution, and global warming. This paper proposes a Search Group Algorithm (SGA) method to determine the optimal location, capacity, and quantity of DGs in distribution networks. The SGA method has a good ability to find optimal solutions thanks to the ability to balance between the global search and local search in the optimization process. The objective of the problem is to minimize the power loss of the distribution networks while meeting the constraints of the networks, such as power balance, bus voltage limit, branch current limit, DG power limit, and DG penetration limit. The proposed method is applied to the IEEE 33-node and 69-node distribution networks with two different cases. After integrating DGs into distribution networks, the power loss are reduced by 70.14% and 70.23% for the 33-node and 69-node distribution networks, respectively. The results obtained from the SGA method were compared with other methods in the literature. The simulation results have proved that the SGA method has good performance for the optimal DG placement problem in distribution networks.