A Fast Adequacy Analysis for Radial Distribution Networks Considering Reconfiguration and DGs

The current searching schemes in reliability evaluation of radial distribution systems require complicated and extensive codes, that contribute to the majority of the CPU times. This paper proposes a new one-step method operating with a set of binary descriptor matrices, replacing the searching, to calculate load and system reliability indices. In this technique, `fuse to branch' and `switch to branch' are introduced and employed to facilitate the solutions along with the use of bus-injection to branch-current matrices. In this approach, the cross-connects operation, islanding mode of small-scale DGs, and network constraints are also considered as part of the adequacy evaluation. The proposed technique is highly efficient for long-term distribution network planning and optimization where many cross-connects are involved. The proposed technique is applied to RBTS Bus 2 and 4, as well as a realistic 747-node distribution network. Results for the large distribution planning of the 747-node network demonstrate the computational time is reduced from 61 days using the traditional method to 4.6 hours based on the proposed technique.