The general capacitor placement problem is a combinatorial optimization problem having an objective function composed of power losses and capacitor installation costs subject to bus voltage constraints. In this paper, a global optimization technique, which employing the chaos search algorithm, is applied to solve optimal capacitor placement problem with reducing computational effort and enhancing global optimality of the solution. Chaos method in optimization problem searches the global optimal solution on the regularity of chaotic motions and easily escapes from local or near optimal solution than stochastic optimization algorithms. The chaos optimization method is tested on 9 buses and 69 buses system to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.