Protective and switching devices allocation according to total cost minimization by genetic algorithm in distribution systems

Protective and switching devices play an important role in system reliability. The placement of these devices affects the effects of them. In this paper, novel method is proposed to allocate the protective and switching devices in distribution systems. In the proposed method, energy not supplied (ENS) is selected to define a proper objective function to find the optimal solution. One of the most effective advantages of the proposed method is the cost-benefit analysis in solve the optimization problem. The practical distribution network is selected to apply the method. The obtained results illustrate the effectiveness of the method.