Hossein Karami - Dept. of Electrical Engineering Amirkabir University of TechnologyTehran, Iran
Seyed-Alireza Ahmadi - Dept. of Electrical Engineering Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University Tehran, Iran
Mohammad-Javad Sanjari - Dept. of Electrical Engineering Universiti Teknologi MalaysiaJohor Darul Takzim, Malaysia
Behrooz Zaker - Dept. of Electrical Engineering Amirkabir University of TechnologyTehran, Iran

Loadability is one of the important issues in investigation of the power system. Researchers try to improve the loadability of power system by different approaches and considering various constraints. In addition, equipment performs both economic and technical functions in the power system. Cable aging can be considered as an equipment aging which is a result of metallic structure (like cable sheathing) erosion. It is a reality of life in power network. The results of cable aging in power system are higher risk of failure and loosing system reliability. The best way to solve aging problem is to reduce cable current flow by using different methods such as installing distributed generations (DGs) in power system. In this paper, by using Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA), optimal placement of DGs is performed to reduce cable aging and improve loadability of the system. The test system used in this paper is the IEEE 33-bus standard network and Backward/Forward sweep load flow calculations are used in this work. The obtained results demonstrate loadability improvement considering cable aging constraint by performing optimal DGs placement. The problem is investigated in three scenarios and the HSA is run 10 times for each scenario. The results show the suitability of HSA in aspect of convergence and finding global optimum value for this problem.

Cable aging, Loadability, DG placement, Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA)