A Modified Particle Swarm Technique for Distribution Systems Reconfiguration

This paper introduces the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to solve the optimal network reconfiguration problem for power loss reduction. The PSO is a relatively new and powerful intelligence evolution method for solving optimization problems. It is a population-based approach. The PSO was inspired from natural behavior of the bees on how they find the location of most flowers. The proposed PSO algorithm is introduced with some modifications such as using an inertia weight that decreases linearly during the simulation. This setting allows the PSO to explore a large area at the start of the simulation. A modification in the number of iterations and the population size is also presented. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed PSO algorithm, comparative studies are conducted on two test distribution systems. The obtained results are compared with those obtained using other approaches in the previous work to examine the performance. KeywordsParticle Swarm Optimization, Distribution Systems Reconfiguration, Power Loss Reduction.