Reliability Enhancement of a Distribution System Using Genetic Algorithm

Electric supply utilities invest a lot of money every year to improve the quality of power supplied to their customers. With the increase in demand day by day, an oligopoly has been created in the market to maintain a certain level of reliability to attract the customers such that they show the willingness to pay more for a more reliable system. For enhancing the customer contentment and comfort, according to their insistence, improvement of service reliability and simultaneously minimizing the capital costs is an extensive issue for the optimization of the distribution system. The reliability of the distribution system may be improved by the optimal placement of protective devices and switches but the determination of the optimal location and number of switches is a major concern from the reliability and economic outlook. In this paper, manual as well as optimal placement of reclosers have been done in a 13-bus radial distribution system to maximize the net profit to the utility by improving the system reliability. For optimal placement of reclosers, genetic algorithm (GA) technique has been utilized. Reliability indices such as- SAIFI, SAIDI, CAIDI, ASAI, ASUI & AENS before and after the placement of reclosers have been compared. The results thus obtained show that maximum profit to the utility with minimum capital and outage costs can be obtained by the optimal placement of reclosers in a radial distribution system.