Power Loss Minimization in Distribution System Using Network Reconfiguration with Particle Swarm Optimization

Reconfiguration of radial distribution system is significant way of altering the power flow through lines. This paper presents a new method to solve the network reconfiguration problem with an objective of minimizing real power loss and improving voltage profile in radial distribution system(RDS). A Meta-heuristic Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used to reconfigure and identify the optimal tie switches for minimization of real power loss in a distribution network. Different scenarios of reconfiguration of distributed network are considered to study the performance of the proposed method. The constraints of voltage and branch current carrying capacity are included in the evaluation of the fitness or objective function. The method has been tested on 33-bus at four different load levels to demonstrate the performance and effectiveness of the proposed method. The results obtained, shows that improvement in voltages and reduced losses.