Supervisory control for coordinating Volt/Var control devices on a distribution system

This paper proposes a computationally efficient method for supervisory control of Volt/Var control devices-voltage regulators and capacitor banks - on a distribution system. The method searches for the best control settings for these devices as the operating conditions change on the system in real-time. The objective of the supervisory control is that of a volt/var optimization - minimize the power losses on the distribution circuit while keeping the node voltages within the acceptable range. The method considers multiple voltage regulators and capacitor banks on a distribution feeder. The test results show the effectiveness of method in terms of providing the global optimal solution with fast computational speed.