Determination of optimal output power and location for multiple distributed generation sources simultaneously by using artificial bee colony

Transformation of a distribution network into an intelligent and efficient system meets with many difficulties. One of most important challenges for engineers is to achieve a more economical distribution network. In addition, fluctuation in the price of oil and gas makes this task more complex. Therefore, the introduction of distributed generation (DG) in the system promises to be a good solution to reduce the dependency on oil and gas sources. However, the location and output power of DG are still an issue that needs to be solved by the utility. In previous studies, determination of DG output power and DG location are executed separately, which means a different technique is applied to each of them. Thus, it will lead the solution getting trapped in a local minimum because the calculation of optimal DG output power does not depend on the optimal DG location. This paper presents a solution to determine the location and output power of DGs simultaneously by using simultaneous artificial bee colony (SABC) to reduce the total power losses. The performance of SABC is compared with that of separate analysis, which is a combination of a single DG placement algorithm and artificial bee colony (ABC). The analysis shows that determining simultaneously the DG's location and the output gives lower total power losses and better voltage profile compared to separately analyzing the two.