Energy loss reduction and load balancing through network reconfiguration in practical LV distribution feeder using GAMS

The intuition of the power companies is to supply quality power to the consumers with reduced line losses. Reduction of transmission and Distribution line losses is a great challenge for most of the developing countries. This paper demonstrates the network reconfiguration in a practical low voltage Indian utility Distribution Feeder. Various configurations are suggested and the real power losses are computed using General Algebric Modeling System (GAMS), Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) CPLEX solver. Load balancing is done for mitigation of voltage profile at the highly loaded nodes. Load flow analysis is performed through Forward / Backward Sweep analysis, which is more suitable for the radial system. Real power loss and voltage at nodes are compared and presented before and after network reconfiguration. This paper emphasizes the importance of network reconfiguration for developing countries like India.