A Hybrid Ant Colony Search Based Reconfiguration of Distribution Network for Loss Reduction

This paper presents one of applications of the ant colony search method to reduce the minimum losses of distribution network. The configuration of distribution network is defined by the tie switches and sectionalized switches. The configuration optimization problem of distribution network is a combination optimization with a large search space involved the operational constraints of the distribution. An ant colony search (ACS) and a hybrid ACS combining membership functions are proposed to achieve both the global optimization and the fastest computing time. The results are compared to the ones obtained from other heuristic methods (heuristic, simulated annealing, genetic). All of the algorithms are programmed on Matlab applied to the typical distribution system 3 feeders, 17 buses, 16 switches and one feeder of Hochiminh Utility, 55 buses, 13 switches. This ant colony search algorithms obtains computation time faster and more reliability than other ones