Impact of Distribution Network Reconfiguration and Optimal Capacitor Placement under Wheeling Transactions.

Distribution Network reconfiguration (DNR) and Optimal Capacitor Placement (OCP) are well known techniques to reduce power loss and maintain stable voltage levels in Distribution network. Minimization of power loss has immense effect on cost, quality and reliability of supply. Following the present trends of power trading methods, this paper explores the necessity of reconfiguration of the network and Optimal Capacitor Placement under wheeling transaction, incorporating market dispatching considerations. Wheeling transactions will add additional loss which is taken into consideration while modelling. Distribution System Operator (DSO) plays responsible role and knows how to reconfigure the network for the optimal operation of the entire system. DSO optimizes the objective function (minimization of power loss) by satisfying constraints of all the participants that includes technical as well as commercial. By its nature, DNR or Feeder Reconfiguration (FR) and OCP are a complex multi constrained optimization problem. The chosen optimization algorithm should improve the effective operation of DSO. Differential Search Algorithm (DSA) is adapted to solve this optimization problem due to its simple structure and proven faster convergence. The proposed methodology was tested on standard IEEE 33-bus distribution system. Simulation results are presented and compared with existing popular methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]