Strategically incorporation of RES and DSTATCOM for techno-economic-environmental benefits using search space reduction-based ICSA

In this study, an improved crow search algorithm (ICSA) is proposed for the optimal allocation of renewable energy sources (RESs) and distributed static compensator in a practical distribution network (PDN) to improve system voltage, reduce line losses, maximise economic benefit, and decrease pollutants’ emission. To improve the performances, the control parameters of ICSA are logically tuned to make them adaptive with the iteration. Voltage stability index is used to identify healthier and weaker buses (HBs and WBs) of the system and comparative performance analysis is conducted after placing the devices at the identified HBs and WBs. The proposed technique is applied for both the cases of reduced search space (only WBs) and full search space (all the load buses) to establish that the optimal placement is always obtained at the WBs of the network. The optimal allocation for each type of device is conducted considering the time-varying characteristics of load demand and RES's power output, and their optimal performances are analysed in details, which will be helpful for the distribution companies to identify the most suitable device for incorporating in PDN. Furthermore, to show the effectiveness, the proposed algorithm is also compared with other algorithms.