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 the ‘‘Imperialist Competitive Algorithm" is designed.  ICA as one of the new evolutionary methods has recently got more attention in power system applications due to its special capabilities. The efficiency of ICA to solve optimization problems in other fields has confirmed its better performance compared with other evolutionary algorithms. 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;