Network Reconfiguration and Reactive Power Compensation Dispatch in Smart Distribution Systems

Abstract

A significant challenge is to design strategies to minimize electrical losses in smart distribution systems while observing voltage and feeder loading constraints. Unfortunately, few studies have solved the problem of simultaneously coordinating already installed capacitors banks with network reconfiguration problems. This book chapter presents two methodologies for solving the reconfiguration and reactive power compensation dispatch. Both methodologies are formulated as two-stage solve reconfiguration and reactive power compensation problems with the characteristic of having acceptable computational efficiency and loss reduction close to the optimal solution. In the first stage, network reconfiguration is carried out to discriminate radial configurations that do not satisfy voltage and overload restrictions. In the second stage, a reactive power compensation dispatch is applied to each feasible network configuration by connecting capacitor blocks successively until all available reactive capacity has been used or until a specified loss tolerance has been reached. Finally, switching each capacitor block is carried out using voltage linear sensitivities related to shunt reactive compensation to make a relatively low computational work during the process.