Research On Distribution Network Reconfiguration Using Geretic Algorithm And Graph Theory

Distribution networks provide direct link between the power system and customers as such it produces the vast losses in the system. They are normally constructed as interconnected networks but operated as radial networks. Distribution Network Reconfiguration is the process of altering the status of switches. Normally, there are two kinds of switches that exist in a distribution network; sectionalizing switches and tie switches. It is the prerogative of the operation or planning engineer to alter the status of these switches to attain the optimum configuration that will lead to minimum system losses and load balance in the network. Power companies have attached great importance to feeder reconfiguration due to its role in reducing real power losses and load balancing which in return boost the revenue intake of the company and reduces operational cost. With this significance, this research is very important both theoretically and in practice.This thesis presents a very efficient method for finding the optimum configuration of distribution network that leads to the minimum loss at the same time ensuring that the load remains balance at all times during the configuration. The main research result and innovation achievements obtained in the paper are shown below:A specialized distribution network load flow technique is used in the calculation of the power flow on the network. The backward forward sweep load flow technique is used due to the high disparity of the ratio of the resistance and reactance of the lines. Because of this ratio, in most instances, the Gauss-Siedel, Newton-Raphson and Fast Decoupled methods do not converge to a single solution. Therefore the backward forward sweep is preferred to the other methods.Many techniques have been used by previous researchers to find a solution to the distribution feeder reconfiguration problem. Traditional techniques, heuristic techniques, artificial intelligence, evolutionary programming, etc have all been used with different degree of success. However, in this research, the use of Graph Theory along with Genetic Algorithm is considered. Graph Theory (Prim’s Algorithm) is used to develop the initial population of the search process. The initial population developed is of only radial networks, which saves the burden of testing for network radiality.Genetic Algorithm Optimization technique is used in attaining an acceptable solution to the problem by using Matlab Programming language. The IEEE33bus network is selected for testing the program. The program is tested considering three scenarios:loss reduction, load balancing and the combination of both objectives. The results show that the proposed method is efficient in finding an optimum solution in a distribution network reconfiguration problem.