A Comprehensive Analysis of Reliability-oriented Optimal Distribution System Reconfiguration

This study presents a framework for solving the optimal distribution system reconfiguration problem with an objective of reliability improvement. The framework proposed in this paper is developed based on a new linearized optimization model, in which the coupling between active power and voltage bounds as well as the coupling between reactive power and voltage angle are considered, unlike some traditional linearized models. Furthermore, we developed a search method based on particle warm optimization (PSO) to determine the best combinations of the sectionalizing and tie-switches that yield to minimum power curtailment. We also developed a method based on higher-order contingency analysis to evaluate the reliability of the tested distribution systems. In addition, we utilized a method based on graph theory to preserve the radiality constraints of the resultant optimal configuration. For comparison purposes, we developed a method based on Genetic Algorithms (GA) to search for the best combinations of the sectionalizing and tie-switches that yield to minimum power curtailment. We disseminated the effectiveness of the proposed framework on 33 bus system, 69 bus system, and 118 bus system, which have been extensively used in the literature as examples in solving the distribution system reconfiguration problem. We utilized the proposed framework to calculate the expected energy not supplied reliability index (EENS) and the energy index of unreliability (EIU) for numerous case studies. The obtained results have shown that the amount of the annual expected energy not supplied can be significantly reduced using the proposed framework.