Power loss minimization and reliability enhancement in active distribution networks considering RES uncertainty

Renewable energy sources (RES) utilization has been growing continuously and most probably to be included in distribution networks. The intermittent nature of RES electricity production is due to the dependency on external weather conditions that are changing seasonally. The uncertain power production causes negative impacts on voltage profile and results to increase the power losses. This paper proposes a novel technique based on hybrid optimization methods to determine the optimum power of the uncertain RE sources and the optimum network configuration to minimize the power losses and maintain the voltage profile under normal and shading conditions. The proposed hybrid algorithm utilizes a genetic algorithm (GA) combined with particle swarm optimization (PSO) to overcome the uncertainty and optimize the configuration of the networks. Considering different operational conditions of RES (i.e. normal and shading), the proposed model has tested on standard IEEE 33 and 66 bus systems and validated with other conventional methods to verify the correctness. Moreover, the performance of the proposed method is evaluated by comparing with other methods. The obtained results show a significant reduction of power losses, improvement in voltage profile, and hence increasing the overall distribution system stability.