Atom Search Optimization Algorithm for Allocating Distributed Generators in Radial Distribution Systems

In recent years the use of renewable energy sources (RES) by many power grid companies worldwide has increased significantly. The trend towards RES use is mainly due to environmental issues and rising fuel prices associated with conventional electricity generation. This paper introduces a hybrid approach to find the optimal location and size of distributed generations (DG) in the radial distribution system (RDS). The proposed approach is based on the atom search optimization (ASO) technique to calculate the optimal allocation of DGs and power loss sensitivity (PLS) index to obtain the best buses for DGs installation in RDS. The presented approach is applied to IEEE 33-bus RDS to increase voltage profile and minimize the power losses. The results obtained prove that the developed approach can be highly effective in integrating DG into RDS compared to many other methods in the literature.