Distribution System Restoration Using Genetic Algorithm with Distributed Generation

Abstract

Distribution system automation is carried out to improve the reliability, stability, efficiency and service quality of a system. When a fault occurs in the system quick restoration is required in the faulted area, which needs dedicated software to assist the operator. In this paper, an algorithm is developed to find the radial configuration to restore the system after a fault using Genetic Algorithm (GA). The restoration is carried out with minimum system loss, voltage drop and number of switching operations with line current and bus voltage limits as constraints. The load flow is performed by forward/backward sweeping algorithm. Additional mesh checking of the network is avoided using Prufer number encoding of strings. The effect of DG in loss reduction during restoration is analyzed which is observed to be a high level from the results. The developed algorithm is tested on IEEE 16-Bus and 33-Bus radial distribution systems.