A STUDY ON REACTIVE POWER ALLOCATION FOR ELECTRICAL POWER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM WITH LOW VOLTAGE PROFILE

Due to its long feeder line with high R/X ratio, a distribution system suffers from low voltage profile at its load nodes. This work studies reactive power allocation for this type of problem. A linear programming-based optimal power flow is proposed to solve this problem by finding minimal amount of installation of new reactive power support devices while maintaining voltage at each load bus within the ±5% deviation. The proposed approach was tested on 11-bus test system and a real-world distribution feeder in Indonesia with 119 buses and 106 load points. This actual feeder experiences voltage magnitude below the 0.95 p.u limit. Simulation results show that some load points of this feeder require installation of new reactive power support devices to maintain their voltage to be above the 0.95 p.u. limit.