Optimal reconfiguration and placement are used to reduce power losses and keep the voltage within its allowable interval in power distribution systems considering voltage, current, and radial condition constraints. An effective method and a new algorithm using ‘‘Dolphin Echolocation Optimization" are designed.  This algorithm simulates dolphin echolocation by limiting its exploration proportional to the distance from the target. For making the relationship much clear, consider an optimization problem. Two phases can be identified: In the first phase the algorithm explores all around the search space to perform a global search, therefore it should look for unexplored regions. This task is carried out by exploring some random locations in the search space, and in the second phase, it concentrates on an investigation around better results achieved from the previous stage.  The algorithm is applied and tested on 16,33,69,118 and 119 bus IEEE test systems to find the optimum configuration of the network with regard to power losses. Five different cases are considered as mentioned below, and the effectiveness of the proposed technique is also demonstrated with improvements in power loss reduction, through MATLAB under steady-state conditions.
Case #1. Only network reconfiguration;
Case #2. Only capacitor placement;
Case #3. First, network reconfiguration and then capacitor placement
Case #4. First, capacitor placement and then network reconfiguration;
Case #5. Network reconfiguration and optimal capacitor placement, simultaneously;