Optimal Distributed Photovoltaic Units Placement in Radial Distribution System Considering Harmonic Distortion Limitation

Fossil fuels are used in the system to cause environmental pollution and global warming. Thus, nowadays, the use of renewable energy sources is becoming very popular in countries around the world. In addition to being environmentally friendly, installing of renewable energy sources has shown significant impacts on the power quality as well as on the operating costs of the system. In this paper, an effective, nature-inspired meta-heuristic approach is applied to research the optimal siting and sizing of distributed photovoltaic units (PVUs) in radial distribution systems. The main objective of this research is to focus on minimizing the power loss of the system while harmonic distortions are kept in the permissible limits of the IEEE Std. 519 and voltage profile is kept within the best range of voltage. The approach is called the Coyote Optimization Algorithm (COA), which is developed based on the behavioral characteristics of the coyote community, is introduced to ensure maximum benefits from the grid integrated PVUs system. This is a simple algorithm in application with few control parameters and it has the ability to expand the search zones and avoid local traps, resulting in a high performance and stability. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated in comparison to other methods as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA) in the IEEE 85-bus radial distribution system. The obtained results indicate the outstanding efficiency of the proposed method in maximizing the economic and technical benefits by optimal installation of distributed PVUs.