Abstract

This study proposes and applies an evolutionary-based approach for multiobjective reconfiguration in electrical power distribution networks. In this model, two types of indicators of power quality are minimised: (i) power system's losses and (ii) reliability indices. Four types of reliability indices are considered. A microgenetic algorithm (GA) is used to handle the reconfiguration problem as a multiobjective optimisation problem with competing and non-commensurable objectives. In this context, experiments have been conducted on two standard test systems and a real network. Such problems characterise typical distribution systems taking into consideration several factors associated with the practical operation of medium voltage electrical power networks. The results show the ability of the proposed approach to generate well-distributed Pareto optimal solutions to the multiobjective reconfiguration problem. In the systems adopted for assessment purposes, our proposed approach was able to find the entire Pareto front. Furthermore, better performance indexes were found in comparison to the Pareto envelope-based selection algorithm 2 (PESA 2) technique, which is another well-known multiobjective evolutionary algorithm available in the specialised literature. From a practical point of view, the results established, in general, that a compact trade-off region exists between the power losses and the reliability indices. This means that the proposed approach can recommend to the decision maker a small set of possible solutions in order to select from them the most suitable radial topology. © 2009 The Institution of Engineering and Technology.