Reconfiguration of balanced and unbalanced distribution systems for cost minimization

Distribution system reconfiguration is very important operational aspect of distribution systems. When distribution system is fed from different substations/feeders, and various types of generating stations owned by various agencies, energy purchase cost may vary from owner to owner. In such cases formulating reconfiguration problem with loss minimization may not be acceptable. It is important to design the appropriate optimization techniques to find optimal solutions. Mostly, the used approaches are metaheuristics in nature. Few heuristic methods are presented but limited to balanced systems only. Hence, the motivation in this paper is to develop a simple heuristic method for distribution system reconfiguration, while minimizing the real power purchase cost. The proposed method is suitable for both balanced and unbalanced distribution systems. The algorithm is tested on two balanced and unbalanced distribution systems and results are verified with the ones obtained with more rigorous improved harmony search (IHS) technique.