Optimal Multi-Objective Reconfiguration in Distribution Systems Using the Novel Intelligent Water Drops Approach

This paper presents a new method for optimal multi-objective reconfiguration of distribution system based on the novel Intelligent Water Drops (IWD) algorithm in order to mitigation of losses, improving the voltage profile and equalizing the feeder load balancing. The proposed method is validated using the IEEE33-bus test system and a Tai-Power 11.4 KV distribution system as a real distribution network. Also to assess the performance of the proposed method at different load levels, the two test networks are simulated at three load levels: light, nominal, and heavy. The results show that multi objective reconfiguration using Intelligent Water Drops leads to improvement in all objectives at various load levels. The obtained results prove that the proposed technique can be more accurate than other well known methods such as Genetic Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, and Harmony Search algorithm.