Abstract:

This paper presents a new approach for the optimal reconfiguration of radial distribution systems in the presence of reactive power compensators (RPCs). The proposed method is based on the simultaneous reconfiguration and RPC allocation for the mitigation of losses, equalizing the feeder load balancing as well as improving the voltage profile in power distribution networks. In this paper, the compensators are the capacitor bank and distribution static compensator, which is a type of distribution flexible alternating current transmission system device representative of conventional and modern RPCs. In this regard, the optimal states of the distribution system tie switches are determined taking into consideration the best size and location of the RPCs. In order to facilitate the algorithm for multiobjective search ability, the optimization problem is formulated for minimizing fuzzy performance indices. Since the optimization problem is nonlinear, using intelligent search methods such as the shuffled frog-leaping (SFL) algorithm can overcome the limitations of conventional analytic methods. In addition, to enhance the performance of the standard SFL, the fuzzy frog-leaping rule is used in this paper. This algorithm is more accurate and has an efficient convergence property compared to other intelligent search algorithms. The proposed method is validated using the IEEE 33-bus test system and a Tai-Power 11.4-kV distribution system as a real distribution network. The obtained results indicate that multiobjective simultaneous placement of RPCs along with reconfiguration can be more beneficial than separate single-objective optimization.

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