Optimal location and sizing of distributed generation unit using intelligent water drop algorithm

Abstract This paper presents a novel method for optimal location and sizing of distributed generation (DG) unit. The objective of this paper is to minimize the total line losses of the radial distribution network. For the installation of DG unit the loss sensitivity factor (LSF) is used. For the sizing of the DG unit intelligent water drop (IWD) algorithm is used. IWD is a nature inspired optimization approach in which a natural river always finds an easier path to flow from source to destination when the entire possible paths are available. Each drop in the river cooperates with other drops in choosing the optimal path. The proposed approach is tested on IEEE-10 bus, 33 bus and 69 bus radial systems. The simulation results illustrate the good applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method.