New Methods for Distribution Network Reconfiguration from Multicriteria Decision-Making

The distribution network reconfiguration is intended to: reduce power losses, enhance the voltage profile for customers, increase the reliability levels or restore the power supply in contingency situations. Despite the complexity of this combinatorial issue of large proportions, researchers are making an effort to find effective optimization methods, since the classic methods are difficult to resolve. The disadvantage of these works is that most of them practically ignore the totality of the formal information available at the utilities. The efficient solution also needs to consider the expertise and experience of the utilities' professionals, which can be accomplished through the development of Specialist Systems. For these reasons, it is more indicated and desirable to develop algorithms that allow the collection of formal and informal analysis methods. These findings have motivated the production of this paper. It proposes the development of efficient methods and a computational tool for the distribution system reconfiguration from multicriteria decision-making methods, aiming at the adequate processing of the information sources available at the utilities.