Optimisation strategy for determining location, sizing, and planning horizon to accommodate diverse load growth in the distribution system

The growing demand for electrical power which is driven by factors such as population growth, urbanisation, and industrialisation poses significant challenges for distribution systems. As the load increases, existing systems often struggle to handle the load growth, leading to higher power losses during transmission and distribution. This can result in issues like overloads, voltage instability, grid congestion, and power outages, all of which negatively affect the efficiency and reliability of the power supply. This research presents the optimisation of load growth using a genetic algorithm (GA) to determine the optimal number of years, when industrial, residential, and commercial loads grow at 3% annually while optimal-sized distributed generators (DGs) are integrated at optimal locations to minimising active and reactive power losses, improving the voltage profile and operating within the acceptable voltage threshold in a 33-bus radial distribution system. When the DGs are integrated the minimised active power losses should be below 2.5 kW and reactive power losses should be below 1.7 kVAR and the voltage profile should range from 0.9 to 1.05 p.u. The results analyses were divided into two parts. The study was analysed in two parts, the first part, Scenario VII achieved the most significant reduction in active power losses (1.26 kW) and supported load growth for 3 years and 5 months and the second part, Scenario II, supported load growth for 17 years and 2 months, achieving the most extended growth capacity.