Stepwise Restoration of Power Distribution Network under Cold Load Pickup

This paper presents a scheme for step-by-step restoration of a power distribution network under cold load pickup condition. The proposed scheme uses the optimal load shedding for each step of the restoration process, and determines the optimal switching sequence for the restoration process. The optimization is performed to achieve multiple objectives of minimum load curtailment and minimum switching operations while satisfying all the system constraints. Genetic algorithm has been utilized to search the optimal solution. The scheme has been illustrated on a standard 33-bus radial distribution network.