Development of ACO Algorithm for Service Restoration in Distribution system

Service restoration in power distribution system involves operating the line switches to restore as many loads as possible for the areas isolated by a fault. In case of partial restoration, the supply must be restored to highest priority customers (e.g. hospitals) and this fact should be reflected in the final solution of service restoration problem. Thus service restoration problem is formulated as multi objective, multi constraint combinatorial optimization problem. This paper proposes an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm for a minimization problem of energy not supplied during restoration process. The proposed ACO algorithm is a new technique for combinatorial optimization borrowed from swarm intelligence. The operating time of manually controlled and automatically controlled switches is significantly different. Therefore both types of switches are considered separately.