VOL. 16, NO.

2, 2017, 5-10
www.fke.utm.my/elektrika
ISSN 0128-4428

Sequential Capacitor Placements Method for

Voltage Improvement in Transmission Networks
Mohammad Azalie Asrof Romzi and Jasrul Jamani Jamian*

Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
*
Corresponding author: jasrul@fke.utm.my, Tel: 607-5557227

Abstract: The voltage profile in a transmission line system should be in the tolerance of the lower limit to the upper limit
value. Moreover, the power loss during transmission process should be minimized to increase the lifespan of the
transmission lines. The poor voltage profile and high power losses are the results of increasing of power demand due to the
arising of electrical energy consumptions. These problems can be solved by using the shunt capacitor bank placements. The
installation of capacitors required three specifications which are the locations, size and number of capacitors to improve the
voltage profile of overall system. However, these three specifications are difficult to be determined. The best locations for
capacitor placements will result in minimum number and size. In this study, the specifications of capacitor placements in
transmission networks is determined by using power loss indication and the number and the size of capacitor is based on
voltage increment algorithms. The proposed methods will be applied on three transmission networks which are 6-bus system,
14-bus system and 30-bus system using Power World Simulator. The results show that the proposed method able to improve
the overall voltage profile and reducing the power loss with minimum number of capacitor placement in the transmission
networks.

Keywords: Power loss reduction, shunt capacitor bank placements, transmission networks, voltage profile improvement.
© 2017 Penerbit UTM Press. All rights reserved

programming. The different size of capacitor bank will

1. INTRODUCTION give different level of voltage increment. The available
In this new era of globalization, the demand for power is capacitor sizes and the amount of voltage to be corrected
growing larger as the consumption of electrical energy is of each size of capacitors are determined as shown in
increasing. However, the increased in demand will cause Figure 1.
more stress on the transmission systems and this
phenomenon can lead to poor voltage profile of the
networks. Sufficient reactive power is very important to
maintain the voltage profile in a proper range [1].
Besides, the high power loss will reflect the shorter life
span and less reliable of the transmission network. Thus,
it is important to improve the voltage profile and reduce
the power loss of the transmission network to increase the
reliability. Several units of shunt capacitor bank can be
used to improve voltage profile, minimize feeder demand
and reduce power loss [2].
As the main cause of poor voltage profile is due to the
insufficient reactive power delivered, the improvement of Figure 1. Upper and lower bounds of capacitor-corrected
voltage profile can be achieved by installing shunt voltage and capacitor voltage rise
capacitor banks. Many methods have been proposed
regarding the improvement of voltage profile using In line with this work, authors in [5] used Equation (1)
capacitor placements. The simplest approaches is to determine the percentage voltage increment due to
introduced in [3]. The capacitor bank is placed at the bus compensation of MVAr size of capacitor. The
with lowest voltage profile and the authors have found determination of the voltage increment is involving the
the placement will greatly improve the voltage profile. distance of the capacitor bank from the source. The
Aside from using this approach, a simple computer greatest voltage rise can be achieved at the installation
programming for locating shunt capacitors on primary location of the shunt capacitor bank.
feeder for voltage control and loss reduction is proposed
in [4]. In their research, the authors had identified the ( kVAr ) ( d ) ( X )
%Voltage rise = (1)
suitable sizes for capacitor banks based on the amount of ( 10 ) (kV) 2
voltage to be increased through the computational

5
 Mohammad Azalie Asrof Romzi et al. / ELEKTRIKA, 16(2), 2017, 5-10

Where,
% Voltage rise : The percentage of voltage increment
kVAr : Power rating of the shunt capacitor
d : Distance of capacitor installation
location from the source in km
X : Reactance of the line in ohm per unit
length
kV : Line-to-line voltage in kV

Not only limited to mathematical formulation, the

capacitor banks placement can also being identified using
Meta-heuristic technique. A few Meta-heuristic
algorithms are used in the in this study, such as Crow
Search Algorithm (CSA) [6], Genetic Algorithm (GA)
[7]-[9] and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) [10]-[12]. Figure 3. 14-bus system
Although these algorithms able to provide simultaneous
capacitor banks placement results, however, its required
several trials in order to ensure result is valid. Indirectly,
it will consume a lot of time. Furthermore, the algorithm
required some knowledge on possibility search space.
Without all these information, the technique will not able
to provide better result.
Therefore, in this paper, the sequential capacitor banks
placement and sizing based on power loss and adjacent
voltage improvement are proposed. The algorithm will be
tested on 3 different transmission systems.

2. METHODOLOGY
2.1 Simulation of the Transmission Networks
Figures 2, 3 and 4 show the 6-Bus system, 14-Bus system
and 30-Bus system transmission networks used for this Figure 4. 30-bus system
study respectively. The system data such as bus data, line
2.2 Capacitor Placements Method
data and transformer data are taken from IEEE standards
data. The original networks of these transmission systems The suitable location of capacitor placement will give
have voltage profile within 0.95 per unit to 1.10 per unit. minimum size of capacitor in order to improve the
In order to test the proposed sequential capacitor voltage profile at all buses. In order to find the suitable
placement method, the loads in all these systems are location for capacitor placement, sequential capacitor
increased by certain percentages. placements method based on total power loss reduction
As a result, the overall loads are increased by 50%, after capacitor installation is used in this study. The
75% and 100% for 6-bus and 30-bus systems. process of this method is shown by using the flowchart in
Meanwhile, the overall loads are increased to 175% and Figure 5.
200% for the 14-bus system. With this condition, there
will have some buses in the system that operated below
then 0.95 p.u. In this study, the MVA limits of the
transmission lines for all the systems is assumed to very
large to overcome the overload due to the increasing of
the loads.

Figure 5. Flowchart for identifying the location for

Figure 2. 6-bus system
capacitor placement

6
 Mohammad Azalie Asrof Romzi et al. / ELEKTRIKA, 16(2), 2017, 5-10

Vpu desired  Vpu old

The location for the installation of capacitor is MVAr required = (5)
Vpu per MVAr
identified based on observation on the power loss
reductions by individual bus due to compensation of 10
Where,
MVAr size of capacitor. The power losses reduction are
MVAr required : MVAr size of capacitor required for
calculated by using Equation (2) and Equation (3).
the bus to achieved desired per unit
n n n voltage
 MW
i 1
loss reduction =  MW
i 1
loss old -  MW
i 1
loss new (2) Vpu desired : Per unit voltage desired.
n n n For x, Vpu desired = 0.95
 MVAr
i 1
loss reduction =  MVAr
i 1
loss old -  MVAr
i 1
loss new (3) For y, Vpu desired = 1.07
where, For z, Vpu desired = 1.03
MW loss reduction : Active power loss reduction Vpu old : Per unit voltage of individual bus
after compensation of shunt before the compensation of n MVAr
capacitor bank size of capacitor at the bus with
MW loss old : Active power loss of the bus lowest voltage profile
before compensation of
shunt capacitor bank
MW loss new : Active power loss of the bus
after compensation of shunt
capacitor bank
MVAr loss reduction : Reactive power loss
reduction after compensation
of shunt capacitor bank
MVAr loss old : Reactive power loss
reduction before
compensation of shunt
capacitor bank
MVAr new : Reactive power loss
reduction after compensation
of shunt capacitor bank
n : number of bus of the system

2.3 Determining Sizes and Number of Capacitors

There are eleven simple steps to get suitable size and
number of capacitor required in any system as shown in
Figure 6. This method is based on the increment of
voltage due the installation of capacitor at the bus with
lowest voltage profile. The increment of voltage profile
per MVAr in step 4 is calculated by using Equation (4).

Vpu new  Vpu old

Vpu per MVAr = (4)
n
where,

Vpu per MVAr : Increment of per unit voltage per 1

MVAr capacitor
Vpu new : Per unit voltage profile after the
compensation of n MVAr size of Figure 6. Flowchart for determining the size and number
capacitor at the bus with lowest of capacitors for capacitor placement
voltage profile
Vpu old : Per unit voltage profile before the 3. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
compensation of n MVAr size of
3.1 First Locations for Capacitor Placements
capacitor at the bus with lowest
voltage profile Tables 1 and 2 show the results of identifying the location
n : MVAr size of capacitor installed at for the capacitor placements based on maximum power
the bus with lowest voltage profile loss reduction. Both results are obtained from two case
studies, which are:
The value of MVAr required for x, y and z, which are in a) 6-bus system with 150% loads
steps 5, 7 and 9, are calculated by using Equation (5). b) 6-bus system with 175% loads
The analysis of these two cases follows the process as
described in the flowchart in Figure 5. Firstly, the overall
loads of the 6-bus system are increased by 50 percent and

7
 Mohammad Azalie Asrof Romzi et al. / ELEKTRIKA, 16(2), 2017, 5-10

the corresponding reactive and active power losses are 3.2 Determining the Size and Number of Capacitors
determined. Then, a 10 MVAr capacitor is installed at In this section, the method to determine the number and
Bus 6. The power loss due to the installation of the size of capacitors will be discussed. The analysis is done
capacitor is determined and the reduction in power loss is based on three different cases as listed.
calculated. Next, the capacitor is removed from Bus 6 Case 1: 6-bus system with 150% loads
and installed at Bus 5. The same analysis on the power Case 2: 14-bus system with 300% loads
loss is done and the flow is repeated until the last location Case 3: 30-bus system with 200% loads
which is at Bus 1. For the second case, the loads are
increased by 75 percent and the overall process as in the 3.2.1 Case 1: 6-bus system with 150% loads
first case is repeated. As discussed in Section 3.1, the suitable location for this
system is at Bus 5. By using proposed algorithm in (4)
Table 1. 6-bus system with 150% loads and (5), one capacitor is enough to improve the voltage
profile of the system up to 0.95 p.u. The optimum value
Power Loss
Power Loss of the capacitor is 35.1 MVAr as shown in Table 3. From
Reduction
Figure 7, the power loss is reduced for both reactive and
MW MVAr MW MVAr
active power loss. The reduction in MVAr loss is greater
loss loss loss loss compared to the reduction of MW loss. The active and
Before reactive power loss are reduced by 10.29% and 15.01%
27.61 57.82
Compensation respectively.
1 27.61 57.82 0 0
After 2 27.61 57.82 0 0 Table 3. Voltage profile of 6-bus system with 150% loads
Compensation 3 27.61 57.82 0 0 before and after compensation
of 10 MVAr
Capacitor at 4 26.78 55.74 0.83 2.08 After Compensation
Before
Bus: 5 26.75 55.16 0.86 2.66 of 35.1 MVAr
Bus Compensation
6 27.12 55.88 0.49 1.94 Capacitor at Bus 5
Vpu Vpu
Table 2. 6-bus system with 175% loads 1 1.05000 1.05000
2 1.05001 1.05000
Power Loss
Power Loss 3 1.07002 1.07000
Reduction
MW MVAr MW MVAr 4 0.94779 0.95165
loss loss loss loss 5 0.92518 0.95045
Before 6 0.96314 0.96818
44.18 107.00
Compensation
1 44.18 107.00 0 0 3.2.2 Case 2: 14-bus system with 300% loads
After 2 44.18 107.00 0 0 One capacitor bank placement is not capable to improve
Compensation 3 44.18 107.00 0 0 overall voltage profile in 14-bus system. Thus, the
of 10 MVAr analysis of sequential capacitor placement and sizing
Capacitor at 4 43.06 104.24 1.12 2.76
need to be done. By using same approach, the optimum
Bus: 5 42.97 103.46 1.21 3.54
size of first capacitor is 68 MAVar.
6 43.51 104.53 0.67 2.47 After the installation of the first capacitor, the system
will repeat the same process, which is to determine the
In the first case (load increase by 50%), power loss next suitable capacitor’s location. As a result, the next
reduction is achieved by the installation of 10 MVAr capacitor location is at Bus 4 with the capacity of 120
capacitor in the network. The greatest power loss MVar. The result in Table 5 shows that the voltage of the
reduction is achieved when the capacitor placed at Bus 5. system is within the tolerance of 0.95 to 1.10 per unit
The same pattern of results is also shown by second case after 2 capacitors placement. The lowest and highest
(175%). Bus 5 is the most suitable location for achieving values of voltage after the compensation is 0.95096 and
the high power loss reduction, even with additional of 1.09 per unit at buses 5 and 8 respectively.
75% load. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
suitable location for capacitor placement is at Bus 5 for 6 70
bus system. 57.82
Power Loss (MW or

60
The process is repeated for IEEE 14 bus and 30 bus 49.14
systems. In 14 bus system, there are five buses with 50
MVAr)

voltage profile less than 0.95 per unit and lowest voltage 40
profile is at Bus 14. Thus, when the load is increased up 27.61 24.77
30
to 300%, the best capacitor placement is at bus 14. For
20
IEEE 30 bus system with 200% of load, the suitable
location for the capacitor bank is at bus 30. However, 10
unlike 6 bus system, 1 capacitor is not enough to improve 0
the voltage profile in these 2 systems. Therefore, the Figure 7. Power lossesMW Losssystem with 150%
of 6-bus MVAR Loss
loads
process to identify minimum number of capacitor will be
discussed in next chapter.

8
 Mohammad Azalie Asrof Romzi et al. / ELEKTRIKA, 16(2), 2017, 5-10

Before Compensation Before Compensation

1.10
900
1.05
Power Loss (MW or MVAr)
800 726.69
671.86 1.00

Voltage (p.u)
700
0.95
600
0.90
500
0.85
400
0.80
300 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
191.97 180.77 Bus Number
200
Figure 9. Voltage Profile of 30-bus system with 175%
100 loads before and after compensation
0
Figure 8. Power losses of 14-bus system with 300% loads
MW Loss MVAr Loss

Table 5. Voltage profile of 14-bus system with 300%

loads before and after compensation
After
After
Compensation
Compensation
Before of 120.0
of 68.0 MVAr
Bus Compensation MVAr
Capacitor at
Capacitor at
Bus 14
Bus 4
Vpu Vpu Vpu
1 1.06000 1.06000 1.06000
2 1.04500 1.04500 1.04500
Figure 10. Power losses of 30-bus system with 175%
3 1.01003 1.01000 1.01000
loads before and after compensation
4 0.90575 0.91544 0.96840
5 0.90926 0.91664 0.95096
4. CONCLUSION
6 1.07007 1.07000 1.07000
7 0.96466 0.99319 1.01942 This paper presents a methodology for capacitor
8 1.09006 1.09000 1.09000 placements and sizing based on sequential approach in
9 0.91991 0.97585 1.00287 order to improve the voltage profile and maximizing the
10 0.92100 0.96818 0.99096 power loss reduction. By using the proposed method,
voltage value of each buses are in between 0.95 to 1.10
11 0.98287 1.00710 1.01883
per unit for all three test bed systems. Furthermore, the
12 1.01388 1.03351 1.03599
minimum number of capacitor required also can be
13 0.98956 1.02635 1.03121
identified. This method could be a great help for the
14 0.88550 1.04761 1.06825 power system planning and operation to overcome the
poor voltage profile due to the increased of loads demand.
3.3.3 Case 3: 30-bus system with 175% loads
The 30-bus system with 175% load also required two REFERENCES
capacitors for improving the overall voltage profile in the [1] Gaikwad, Dattatray N. (2012). Reactive Power
network as shown in Figure 9. With the similar process in Considerations in Reliability Analysis of Solar
Section 3.3.2, the placement for capacitors are at Bus 30 Photovoltaic Systems. LSU Master’s Thesis.
and Bus 24 with the size of 21.5 MVAr and 4.7 MVAr Louisiana State University.
respectively. The power loss before and after [2] D.M. Tagare (2004). Reactive Power Management.
compensation of capacitors is shown in Figure 10. The (1st ed.). New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.
active power loss reduction has not significant impact [3] Kyu-Ho Kim and Seok-Ku You. Voltage profile
compared to reactive power loss reduction. improvement by capacitor placement and control in
From the results, the voltage profile improvement can unbalanced distribution systems using GA.1999
be achieved by using the proposed method. However, for Power Engineering Society Summer Meeting.
the reduction of power losses, the active power losses is Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.99CH36364).
less affected by the compensation of capacitor. Capacitor July 18-22, 1999. Edmonton, Alta. : IEEE. 1999.
placements gave a great impact on the reduction in 800-805.
reactive power loss for all cases. [4] N. E. Chang (1969). Transactions on Power
Apparatus and Systems. Locating Shunt Capacitors
on Primary Feeder for Voltage Control and Loss
Reduction. 88(10), 1574-1577.

9
 Mohammad Azalie Asrof Romzi et al. / ELEKTRIKA, 16(2), 2017, 5-10

[5] H. Wayne Beaty (1998). Electric Power [10] H. Lotfi, M. Samadi and A. Dadpour. Optimal
Distribution Systems: A Nontechnical Guide. Tulsa. capacitor placement and sizing in radial distribution
Oklahoma: PennWell. system using an improved Particle Swarm
[6] A. Askarzadeh (2016). IET Generation, Optimization algorithm. 2016 21st Conference on
Transmission & Distribution. Capacitor placement Electrical Power Distribution Networks Conference
in distribution systems for power loss reduction and (EPDC). May 5-6, 2016. Karaj: IEEE. 2016. 147-
voltage improvement: a new methodology. 10(14), 152.
3631-3638. [11] M. A. A. Razak. Optimal capacitor placement and
[7] N. Kanwar, P. Saini, N. Gupta, A. Swarnkar and K. sizing in an unbalanced three-phase distribution
R. Niazi. Genetic algorithm based method for system using particle swarm optimization
capacitor placement using new sensitivity based technique. 2014 8th International Power
approach. 2014 Eighteenth National Power Systems Engineering and Optimization Conference
Conference (NPSC). December 18-20, 2014. (PEOCO2014). March 24-25, 2014. Langkawi:
Guwahati: IEEE. 2014. 1-6. IEEE. 2014. 624-629.
[8] L. S. Vargas and G. A. Jiménez-Estévez. Genetic [12] S. Mandal, K. K. Mandal and B. Tudu. A new
algorithms for the capacitor placement problem in hybrid particle swarm optimization technique for
distribution networks. 2011 16th International optimal capacitor placement in radial distribution
Conference on Intelligent System Applications to systems. 2016 2nd International Conference on
Power Systems. September 25-28, 2011. Control, Instrumentation, Energy & Communication
Hersonissos: IEEE. 2011. 1-5. (CIEC). January 28-30, 2016. Kolkata: IEEE. 2016.
[9] Kyu-Ho Kim and Seok-Ku You. Voltage profile 536-540.
improvement by capacitor placement and control in
unbalanced distribution systems using GA.1999
Power Engineering Society Summer Meeting.
Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.99CH36364).
July 18-22, 1999. Edmonton, Alta.: IEEE. 1999.
800-805.

10