Optimal Sizing and Placement of Reactive Power Compensation in Rural Distribution Networks Using an Experience Exchange Strategy

Reactive power compensation devices (RPCDs) are crucial for improving the efficiency of energy systems. Distribution systems are commonly modeled under the simplifying assumption of balanced operation, which does not accurately represent real operating conditions. Motivated by the need to develop an effective computational tool for the proper selection of RPCDs, this paper proposes the application of the experience exchange strategy (EES) to the coordinated design of RPCDs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to employ EES for this purpose. The proposed methodology is validated through two case studies. In the first case, an extensive exploration of the search space is performed by repeating the optimization process, resulting in a solution with a high probability of being the global optimum. Under this scenario, a comparative analysis shows that EES outperforms the genetic algorithm by 7.4%. In the second case, EES is compared with other popular heuristic techniques, including particle swarm optimization (PSO), without performing a deep exploration of the search space, observing that EES ranks in the middle, with a difference of 11.9% relative to PSO. Overall, the results confirm that the proposed EES-based framework constitutes a reliable and efficient approach.