Optimal Switch Placement in Interconnected Network of Microgrids to Improve the Reliability of Distribution Network

Providing reliable electrical power to customers is one of the main goals of the power distribution system. In recent years, by emerging distributed generation and introducing the concept of microgrid, the reliability evaluation has been elevated to a new level. In this regard, it is essential to investigate the reliability of distribution grids by considering microgrids. Therefore, in this paper, the optimal switch placement problem has been solved considering the effect of interconnected microgrids. For this sake, an approach based on accelerated particle swarm (APSO) is employed to find the optimal location of automatic switches in the interconnected microgrids network. To illustrate the performance of this method and also evaluate the impact of the interconnection of microgrids on the reliability of distribution networks, in this paper, the simulation results for three interconnected microgrids are provided and discussed. The simulation results validate the proficiency of the employed method and also depict the favorable influence of microgrid interconnections on improving the reliability of distribution networks.