Feeder reconfiguration for accommodating distributed generations interconnection

Previous studies have suggested that, with proper planning, distributed generation (DG) could provide system operation and planning benefits such as reduced losses and enhanced reliability. However, the allowable DG interconnection capacity at each site of the existing network is often restricted by fault current level, voltage variation and power flow constraints. An improved feeder reconfiguration technique is proposed in this paper to maximize DG penetration in the distribution network. Tie switch locations in the network are determined based on crude load flow model and minimum voltage deviation criterion in the proposed particle swarm optimization (PSO) solution procedure to improve computational efficiency. A simplified distribution network is used to test the performance of the proposed method and compare with a basic PSO based method. Numerical results indicate that the proposed method can efficiently provide suitable feeder structure for loss reduction and accommodating higher DG integrations.