DG allocation and network reconfiguration for Energy Efficiency Performance of distribution system using Harmony Search Algorithm

Abstract

In the ever-growing load demand scenario, the representation of loads and the integration of DG in coordination with network reconfiguration plays an important role in the distribution system operation. Though, distribution system usually required to change the network topology due to frequent change in loading pattern and to operate the system in energy efficient manners. The frequent change in network topology further required to alter the DG size as per the demand and the operating constraints. In the past, several researches have presented the reconfiguration and DG allocation exclusively under fixed loading conditions. This work considered several practical combinations of loading pattern for the representation of loads in load flow studies. For optimal load flow, there exists several natures inspired optimization techniques. In this work, optimization is performed using harmony search algorithm. The results are demonstrated on a 33-node radial system under five different loading patterns for single and multi DG allocation. From the results, it can be observed that in the proposed approach the optimal configuration and DG size found to be significantly different as compared to the results obtained for constant power loading in the literature. Moreover, the proposed approach explores the most efficient operation under a large change in loading in order to find the energy-efficient operation of the distribution system.