Allocation of capacitor banks in distribution systems through a modified monkey search optimization technique

This work presents a methodology for the allocation of fixed capacitor banks in electrical power distribution systems by applying a bio-inspired optimization technique. The goal is to optimize the distribution network operation over a planning horizon by minimizing the system losses with minimum cost of investment in capacitors. For this aim to be achieved, this work proposes improvements to the Monkey Search optimization technique to achieve a better representation of the capacitor allocation problem and to increase the computational efficiency. Distribution systems that are widespread in the literature are used to evaluate the proposed methodology. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.