A novel simultaneous reconfiguration and capacitor switching method to improve distribution networks operation

Due to the important role that distribution systems play in quality of power delivered to the customers, there has always been a great deal of interest in investigating different methods of efficiency enhancement for these networks. Two of these methods are Feeder Reconfiguration (FR) and Capacitor Allocation (CA); both have been widely employed to reduce losses and improve several other operational characteristics in electrical power distribution systems. As in FR process the topology of the network changes, it is necessary to change some previous settings; for instance: the capacity of capacitor banks in service in each bus, after each reconfiguration process. This is due to the fact that the new topology may require another arrangement of capacitors in service to address an optimized operation of the system. In this paper, a method is proposed in order to perform both FR and CA simultaneously. Among the advantages of this method, we should mention less computational time and more accuracy in finding the optimal solution. To verify the proposed method, simulations are performed on the IEEE 33- bus distribution test system. Furthermore, to investigate the efficiency of the proposed method, four scenarios are defined. And, two operational indices are introduced. The resultant system power losses and the computed indices clearly demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method.