Strategic approach for reinforcement of intermittent renewable energy sources and capacitor bank for sustainable electric power distribution system

•Implication of PV array, wind turbine and capacitor for sustainable energy system.•Optimum trade-off between technical, economical and environmental objectives.•Validation of the method is shown on an Indian rural distribution network.•Mix RES–capacitor is more effective over solitary RES or capacitor penetration.

To meet ever increasing load demand in a sustainable way, reinforcement of photovoltaic (PV) array, wind turbine (WT) and capacitor bank in distribution network is proposed in this paper. A comprehensive planning model is presented to determine location and required installation capacity of multiple PV array, WT and capacitor units in an electric power distribution network under heavy load growth situation. Intermittent power generation of renewable energy sources (RESs) are quantified with suitable probability distribution functions and incorporated in the planning model. The planning approach considers several welfare areas in the distribution systems, viz., increment of profit margin, reduction of carbon-di-oxide emission, minimization of distribution power losses, enhancement of voltage stability level and improvement of the network security considering power flow, voltage limit, line capacity, RES penetration, capacitor penetration and utility economy constraint. Non-dominated sorting based multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm along with fuzzy decision making criteria is used to find the best allocation alternative for mix RES and capacitor planning problem. The effectiveness of the proposed model has been tested on a typical 28-bus Indian rural distribution network. The results show that more efficient techno-eco-environmental optimization can be obtained from combined RES and capacitor planning model.