Nowadays due to development of distribution systems and increase in electricity demand, the use of distributed generation (DG) sources and capacitors banks in parallel are increased. Determining the installation location and capacity are two significant factors affecting network loss reduction and improving network performance. This paper, proposes an efficient hybrid method based on Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) and genetic algorithm (GA) which can greatly envisaged with problems for optimal placement and sizing of DG sources and capacitor banks simultaneously. The objective function is power loss reduction, improving system voltage profile, increasing voltage stability index, load balancing and transmission and distribution relief capacity for both utilities and the customers. The proposed method is implemented on IEEE 33 bus and 69 bus radial distribution systems and the results are compared with GA/Particle swarm optimization (PSO) method. Test results show that the proposed method is more effective and has higher capability in finding optimum solutions.
