A New Short-Term Planning Strategy for Multi-Objective Distribution Network Reconfiguration and Optimal DG Insertion

This paper suggests a new short-term planning strategy to maximize the benefits of simultaneous distribution network reconfiguration and distributed generation integration by considering the variations in DG outputs and the system load during the planning period. The objective functions to optimize are active power losses, green house emissions and operation costs, while satisfying all operational and topological constraints. A Pareto-optimality-based method is suggested to solve this combinatorial problem providing Pareto optimal solutions where utilities can select a final solution. The effectiveness of the proposed planning strategy is investigated through simulation tests performed on a standard distribution network test system. Fuzzy decision making is utilized to identify the best solutions among Pareto ones. These optimal solutions give significant economic, technical and environmental enhancements of the distribution network.