The location of capacitors to be installed in electrical distribution system is an optimization problem that needs immediate attention. In this paper, an overview of various approaches for solving problems of optimal location of capacitors in electrical distribution system is carried out. The objective functions and constraints of the problem are formulated. The total energy losses are minimized; the cost of energy losses are kept at minimum, the sum of energy loss cost and the investment cost required for the capacitor location are minimized. The cost due to energy loss cost, peak power loss and the investment cost of the capacitors are also minimized. The optimal solution for the power flow equation and bus voltage limits are obtained to limit the capacitor KVAr to be located. The various approaches for solving capacitor location problems are discussed and compared. The Particle Swarm Optimization technique is the most popular of all the techniques due to its simple implementation and relatively smaller computation with a faster convergence even though; premature convergence of algorithm is the draw-back. The accuracy of the results can be improved upon by combining two or more of the optimization techniques to locate capacitors in electrical distribution system.
