Reconfiguration of Unbalanced Distribution Network for Improved Voltage Profile and Power Loss Mitigation

The need for improved quality of services, and an increase in energy demand among others necessitated the urgent need for efficient utilization of the available energy via reducing technical losses in the network. This paper proposed a power loss mitigation scheme by developing an optimal reconfiguration for an unbalanced Distribution Network (DN) to reduce technical losses and improve system reliability. The various components that constitute the unbalanced networks were considered and the impedance of the line was modelled using modified Carson’s equation. At the same time, a power flow based on the forward-backward sweep process was adopted to ascertain the base case losses. A composite load model was adopted. The optimal status of the switches in order to minimize the real power loss is found by Smell Agent Optimization (SAO) algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated on an unbalanced (123 Bus) radial distribution system. The active power loss in the base case of the IEEE 123 bus unbalanced network is 19.98 kW whereas after reconfiguration the loss reduced to 12.25 kW representing a 38.67% reduction in power loss.