Power flow control and reliability improvement through adaptive PSO based network reconfiguration

Ensuring stable power flow and reliable supply could maintain system security, improve system efficiency, minimize power loss, and reduce the risk of supply outage. Power flow management can be employed to enhance bus voltage and decrease power losses. The reliability of the system is critical for both the customers and the utility to ensure supply continuity and improved revenue. With the growing demand for reliable power supplies, it is crucial that utilities devote efforts to ensure a consistent power supply to meet customer needs. However, the frequent occurrence of power interruptions and the prolonged duration of interruption pose significant challenges to power distribution systems in the town of Wolaita Sodo. This study aims to explore power flow and reliability control through the utilization of optimal distribution network reconfiguration (DNR). The optimal placement of tie-switches (TS) to address the power flow and reliability issues is done through the adaptive particle swarm optimization (APSO) algorithm. With the help of APSO, five TS units achieved the reliability indices within the national standard boundary. The backward/forward sweep (BFS) and Markov chain-based Monte Carlo simulation (MCMCS) methods are used for load flow and reliability analysis. Through simulation, with integration of five TS, SAIFI decreases from a value of 557 to about 34, SAIDI decreases from 573.59h to about 43.87h and EENS decreases from 1835.5 MWh to about 140.38 MWh annually, active power loss decreases from 1631.15 kW to about 559.35 kW, the minimum bus voltage increases from 0.7537pu to 0.9502pu. Finally, the evaluation of the suggested algorithm variants is conducted by taking into account the duration it takes to respond, the level of convergence achieved, and the extent to which power loss is minimized.