A Comparative Study of Pareto Optimal Approaches for Distribution System Reconfiguration

Reconfiguration of a power distribution system consists in changing the functional links among its elements and represents one of the most important actions for the improvement of system performance in operation. In the last few years, some authors have proposed approaches based on Pareto optimality for problem formulation of reconfiguration, with active power losses and reliability indices as objectives. The study highlights the optimization importance of reliability indices which refer to the interruption frequency, especially because, in the context of smart grids, the fastness of the reconfiguration method contributes, by itself, to reduce the duration of interruptions. There is no unique recognition concerning which approach is the most suitable to be used in order to solve the reconfiguration as a Pareto-optimal problem. The most important aspect is the way in which the specific information of the problem field is modelled in the implementation. Also, the dimension of a Pareto-front can vary widely from a test system to another.