A New Constructive Method for Electric Power System Reconfiguration Using Ant Colony

This electric power distribution system delivers power to the customers from a set of distribution substations. While the transmission lines are configured in a meshed network, the distribution feeders are configured radially in almost all cases. The proposed problem in this work is to determine the optimal topology among a various alternatives. This problem is known as a problem of total investment-cost minimization, subject to power constraints. In fact, the paper addresses an ant colony met-heuristic optimization method to solve this combinatorial problem. Due to the variation of demand, the reconfiguration may be considered in two different situations: in the system planning or system design stage. The proposed met-heuristic determines the minimal investment-cost system configuration during the considered study period to satisfy power transit constraints. The algorithm of ant colony approach (ACA) is required to identify the optimal combination of adding or cut off feeders with different parameters for the new topology design.