Distribution Network Reconfiguration Applied to Multiple Faulty Branches Based on Spanning Tree and Genetic Algorithms

The distribution network is the most exposed part of the electrical power system relative to different abnormal events; therefore, it reports the highest occurrence rates in terms of electrical and mechanical failures. The present project describes a strategy for restoring faulty areas after the occurrence of an abnormal event causing an outage; consequently, the proposed algorithm is not only focused on the maximization of the connected loads but also deals with the minimization of the switching operations by considering technical operational constraints. The remarked study has two stages: The first one finds an initial set of tie-line candidates using the spanning tree technique, while the second stage applies a genetic algorithm to determine the optimal solution considering all the constraints. Three cases studies have been used to test the proposed algorithm, then the simulation and results of IEEE 13, 37 and 94 node feeders depict the effectiveness of the restoration strategy.