Ordinal optimisation approach for locating and sizing of distributed generation

This study presents an ordinal optimisation (OO) method for specifying the locations and capacities of distributed generation (DG) such that a trade-off between loss minimisation and DG capacity maximisation is achieved. The OO approach consists of three main phases. First, the large search space of potential combinations of DG locations is represented by sampling a relatively small number of alternatives. Second, the objective function value for each of the sampled alternatives is evaluated using a crude but computationally efficient linear programming model. Third, the top-s alternatives from the crude model evaluation are simulated via an exact non-linear programming optimal power flow (OPF) programme to find the best DG locations and capacities. OO theory allows computing the size s of the selected subset such that it contains at least k designs from among the true top-g samples with a pre-specified alignment probability AP. This study discusses problem-specific approaches for sampling, crude model implementation and subset size selection. The approach is validated by comparing with recently published results of a hybrid genetic algorithm OPF applied to a 69-node distribution network operating under Ofgem (UK) financial incentives for distribution network operators.