Discrete artificial bee colony algorithm for solving network reconfiguration problem

Network Reconfiguration is one of the key tools in planning and operation of medium voltage distribution system. Network reconfiguration problem differs from other power system problems (including optimum DG placement or shunt capacitor bank placement in radial distribution system). In network reconfiguration problem, tie switches represent the integer numbers thus the continuous optimization techniques cannot lead to the global fitness solution. The rounding-off the mutated particles positions using the above continuous techniques may also result in slow convergence. This paper proposes DABC algorithm to find the optimum tie switches position. The proposed algorithm will be applied on 16-bus, 33-bus and 69-bus distribution test systems and the results will be compared with existing method.