Feeder reconfiguration employing simulated annealing for distribution systems

This paper presents an effective method to feeder reconfiguration for relia bility improvement, loss reduction, and voltage profile enhancement. Feeder reconfiguration is often accomplished by operating the sectionalizing swit ches placed along a feeder and the tie switches connecting feeders. Two rel iability indices, system average interruption frequency index (SAIFI) and s ystem average interruption duration index (SAIDI), are employed. To obtain the optimal solution, the simulated annealing technique is applied. The ide a of this research is to identify beneficial load transfers, such that the objective function composed of SAIFI, SAIDI, and power loss is minimized an d voltage quality constraint is satisfied. The application of the proposed approach is demonstrated by using a practical secondary substation of Taiwa n Power Company (TPC). Simulation results show that the method is especiall y effective in reliability improvement, but effect of power loss reduction is not significant.