Abstract

In rural power systems, the automatic voltage regulators (AVRs) help to reduce energy losses and to improve the energy quality of electric utilities, compensating the voltage drops through distribution lines. In order to help electric companies in the decision-making process, this paper presents a method to define the optimal location of a set of AVRs in electric distribution networks. The optimization process is treated as a multiobjective problem considering the total power losses and the voltage drops in the system as the objectives to be optimized. A novel technique called micro genetic algorithm (μGA) is used to solve the multiobjective problem. This technique is capable of finding, in a very efficient way, the Pareto optimal solutions, giving the decision maker a set of possible (trade-off) solutions from which to choose. © 2006 IEEE.