A new coordinated design of sectionalizing scheme and load restoration process considering reliability of transmission system.

One of the most important processes during load restoration is to use a suitable sectionalizing scheme to enhance the stability, especially when two islands are synchronized. In this regard, this paper provides a new scheme for the coordination of sectionalizing and load restoration to enhance the power system performance before and during the synchronization of islands. In doing so, there will be contradictory objective functions including maximizing the quality of sectionalizing process, minimizing the maximum standing phase angle (SPA) between islands, and minimizing the sum of energy not supplied (ENS) with unavailable energy capability (UEC) between all N-1 contingencies. Therefore, a multi-objective problem is defined as a mixed integer non-linear problem (MINLP). Also, a reliability-based index is defined to determine the quality of each island. Then, the θ-based water cycle algorithm (θ-WCA) is used to obtain the best Pareto optimal set. Two IEEE 39-bus and 118-bus power systems are used for validating the proposed method. The simulation results imply that the system can benefit from this scheme not only to have the good quality of sectionalizing, but also to enhance the power system performance during load restoration and the synchronization of islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]