Proceedings of the 6th World Congress on Intelligent Control

and Automation, June 21 - 23, 2006, Dalian, China

Optimal Feeder Switches Location Scheme

for High Reliability and Least Costs in
Distribution System
Bin Liu, Shiyan Kun, Jiyan Zou, Xiongying Duan and Xiang Zheng
Department of Electric and Electronic Engineering
Dalian University of Technology
Dalian Liaoning Province,China
dlliubin@163.com
planning adequate number and location of feeder switches on
Abstract - This paper proposes an optimization method for the loop controlled distribution system. The objective is to
planning adequate number and location of feeder switches in a minimize the total reliability cost on precondition of that
loop controlled distribution feeder. The purpose is to minimize service reliability indices be up to the required level. The
the total costs on precondition of that service reliability indices
achieve the required level. First, a network equivalent technique reliability cost is a mixed one that includes switches
is introduced to reduce the calculating burden in the reliability investment, maintains, customer outage cost and line loss.
indices and outage costs evaluating procedure. Second, by using It needs two steps to realize the optimal location scheme.
the equivalent method, system reliability indices and costs on The first step is that to a given switch configuration case, each
various switches configuration cases can be deduced. Then a load point and the total distribution system reliability indices
binary programming optimization method based on improved are calculated. The results are used for evaluating whether the
Genetic Algorithm (GA) is proposed to determine the optimal
switch number and location configuration. The improved reliability data can meet the reliability indices requirement;
algorithm introduces parallel evolution and migration scheme and estimating the total reliability cost in this configuration
into the GA to enhance the searching efficiency. Last, Numerical case. In this step, a service reliability evaluating method based
example shows the validity of the optimizing scheme. on equivalent principle is proposed, which is used for
calculating the service reliability of large composite
Index Terms - Power system, Distribution system, Feeder distribution network. The second step is that based on the
Switch, Reliability, Cost, Genetic Algorithm.
calculated results, system reliability indices and cost in each
possible configuration cases can be deduced. Then an
I. INTRODUCTION
optimization method based on Genetic Algorithm is
In recent years, electric utility industry has confronted introduced to search for the most adequate switch number and
many challenges in the increasingly competitive market, allocation scheme. Aiming at shortcomings in the Simple
which demands them to serve its customers with higher Genetic Algorithm (SGA), an improved one named Multiple-
reliability and lower costs power supply. The power Population Genetic Algorithm (MPGA) is introduced to
distribution network is an important part of the total electrical enhance the searching efficiency.
supply system. It has been reported that more than 80% of the
customer service interruptions are due to failures in the II. RELIABILITY INDICES
distribution network. In order to minimize the faults affection
The reliability evaluation method used in this paper is
and enhance the service reliability level, some feeder switches
based on the common method named failure mode and effect
such as sectionalizers and tie-switches are introduced into the
analysis (FMEA)[2]. The first step of the method is to
distribution system. This measure can isolate any faulted
calculate the reliability indices of each load point. This is
sector in the feeder circuit; simultaneously reestablish service
achieved by calculating all the fault event probabilities in the
to all customers unaffected by the faulted sector within a
distribution system that can directly or indirectly lead to
relatively short period of time [1].
outage of the load point. The load point reliability indices
Obviously, increasing the number of switches in the
include:
distribution feeder can reduce the number of load points in n
single sector, diminish the outage time and costs of customer.
But in some cases, incorrect switches allocation scheme
Average failure rate λs = ¦
i =1
λi (1)

cannot enhance the service reliability effectively. Furthermore, n

the system outage frequency may rise as overmany switch
facilities installed in the system increase the total failure event
Average annual outage time U s = ¦i =1
λ i ri (2)

probability. Average outage duration r = U /λ (3)

s s s

In this vein, the paper proposes an optimization method of Average energy not supplied ENS = P L U s (4)
1-4244-0332-4/06/$20.00 ©2006 IEEE
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 where n is the set of components whose failure results in an summation of the components. As shown in fig.1 (a), failure
outage of the given load point; λ i and ri are the failure of load point LP1 and LP2 on lateral LAT1 can lead to outage
frequency and duration time of component i; P L is the of main feeder, so all components on LAT1 can be represented
as one node on the main feeder that named LAT1E, as shown
average load at the given load point.
in fig.1 (b). The node reliability indices can be obtained as
The second step of the method is to evaluate system indices
follows:
by summing up all of the load points. The system indices n1 m1
include: λ LAT 1E
= ¦λ 1j + ¦λ 1 lk (5)
SAIFI ( int/year·cust ): system average interruption j =1 k =1
frequency index n1 m1
SAIDI ( h/year·cust ): system average interruption duration
index
rLAT 1 E = ¦ λ1 j ⋅ r1 j +
j =1
¦λ
k =1
1 lk ⋅ r1lk (6)
CAIDI ( h/int ): customer average interruption duration
index where n1 is the number of load points on LAT1; m1 is the
AENS ( kWh/year·cust): average energy not supplied number of sub laterals on LAT1; λ1 j , λ1lk , r1 j , r1lk are failure

III. RELIABILITY E VALUATING METHOD BASED ON rate and outage time of load point j and sub lateral k
NETWORK EQUIVALENT APPROACHES separately.
Lateral LAT2 shows a more complex instance. There are
FMEA is an effective way to evaluate a simple network two sectionalizers S21 and S22 on the lateral. Consider that all
reliability level [3]. But if the network involves a large number fault event at downstream position of S21 can be isolated by
of components, the failure events that lead to load point outage S21, and can not affect the main bus, so it can be represented as
will become too much to be calculated by directly using a equivalent node on the main bus feeder as LAT2E. The node
FMEA. This paper introduces a network equivalent method to reliability indices can be obtained as follows:
reduce the computation burden. The method involves two
λ LAT2 E = λ S 21 + λ L2 (7)
stages that named upward approach and downward approach.
Take a typical power sector named SECk in automated rLAT2 E = λ S 21 ⋅ rS 21 + λ L2 ⋅ rL2 (8)
distribution system as an example to illustrate the method. As
Where λ S 21 , λ L2 , rS 21 , rL2 are failure rate and outage time
Fig.1 (a) shows.
of S21 and the lateral that connect S21 to the main feeder
separately.
Sk SECk Sk In addition, associating with the reliability data of Sk, Sk+1
Main feeder and the main feeder line, all components in the sector can be
• LAT1E
LP9 summed up to an equivalent node named BLKE, as shown in
LP1
LAT1
LP8 • LAT2E fig.1 (c). The node reliability indices can be obtained as
LP10 • BUSk E follows:
LP2 LP7 Sk +1 λBLk E = λLAT1E + λLAT2 E + 2 ⋅ λs + λMF (9)
LP3 S22
LP6 (b)
rBLk E = rLAT1E + rLAT2 E + 2 ⋅ λS ⋅ rS + λ MF ⋅ rMF (10)
LAT2
S21 LP4 LP5 • BLKE Where λ s , rS are the failure rate and outage duration of Sk,
Sk+1
Sk+1; λ MF , rMF are the failure rate and outage duration of the
(a) (c)
main feeder line.
Fig. 1. Upward equivalent procedure for reliability evaluating The node BLKE can be considered as a global component
that includes all failure events indirectly lead to the outage of
Where Sk and Sk+1 are two sectionalizers on the main feeder single load point. So it can be repeatedly used in calculating
at both sides of the sector. In the automated distribution the reliability indices of every load point.
system, failures that occurred out of SECk could be quickly
isolated by the nearest sectionalizers. The affected outage B. Downward equivalent approaches
duration in SECk is short and can be ignored. Therefore the The downward equivalent approach is used in calculating
reliability indices of load points in SECk can be calculated by signal load point reliability indices. It simplifies the feeder or
only thinking about the failure event occurred in the SECk. lateral into an equivalent node on their subordinated lateral.
The approach can be illustrated as fig.2.
A. Upward equivalent approach
The Upward equivalent approach is taken to simplify the
failure modes that lead to main feeder outage. According to
the contribution of each component to the bus outage, all of
the components can be represented as an equivalent node on
the main bus feeder. The node reliability indices equals to

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 LP9 where m is the total number of load point in the system, Pi
and μ i are the average load and average annual outage time
LP8
LB21 LP10
LP7 of LPi, , Caoc (i ) is the average outage cost of load point i
LP3 LB22
LP6 S22 ($/kWh).
• LP5
Line loss: because the location of tie-switch determines the
BLk E work mode of distribution network, it affects the line loss of
LP4
(a) total system.
LP9 n 2
LP8 LP9 Si
C LIN = Ccos t ⋅ t w ⋅ 10 −3 ⋅ ¦ ( 2
⋅ Ri ) (16)
LP10 LP8 LP10 UN
i =1
• LB • NL
BLk E
•
Where C cos t is the charge of unit line loss, tw is the service
(b) (c) time of the power system in a year; n is the number of sectors
in the system, UN is the system rating voltage, Ri is the unit
Fig. 2. Downward equivalent procedure for reliability evaluating
line resistance.
Take the indices calculating of load point LP9 as an In a given distribution system, the problem of identify
example. The fault event of node BLKE may lead to outage of adequate number and locations of switches can be presented as
lateral LAT2, so it can be considered as a component serials a binary non-linear programming optimization procedure [4].
connected to LAT2, as shown in Fig2 (a). In the same way, all The objective and constrains of the optimization program is
other components at upstream position of LP9 can be shown as follows:
considered as an equivalent node named LB, The node Object˖ min C = CSWT + CMIN + CCOC + CLIN (17)
reliability indices equals to summation of the components, as Constrains:
shown in fig.2 (b). Thereby all failure events lead to outage of gReliability indices limitation,
LP9 can be represented as an equivalent node NL, the node
gNode voltage limitation
reliability indices equal to summation of the two nodes BLKE
gSource capacity limitation
and LB.
gRadial network structured limitation.
λ NL = λBLk E + λ LB (11)
rNL = rBLk E + rLB (12) V. OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM AND CASE CALCULATIONS
In the same way, the indices of all load points can be A. Optimization algorism
calculated. Associated with the customer outage costs data, The method uses Genetic Algorithm (GA) to solve the
outage cost of every load point can be deduced. So the whole optimization problem. Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA) takes
system reliability indices and outage cost can be deduced by single population, fixed fitness function and genetic operators
summing up the data of all load points. to search for the optimum solution. The searching speed and
result largely affected by the population scale and genetic
IV. OPTIMIZATION OBJECT AND CONSTRAINS operators. For the sake of enhancing search speed and
By using the equivalent method described before, system avoiding premature convergence problem in SGA, an
reliability indices on various feeder switches configuration and improved one that based on parallel evolution technique is
corresponding cost can be deduced. The cost considered in introduced. The algorithm is named as Multi-Population
this paper includes: Genetic Algorithm (MPGA) and the structure can be
Investment in feeder switches: Assume tie-switch to be the illustrated as fig.3.
same price and service lifetime as sectionlizer, the total The key characteristic of the algorithm is that:
investment that convert into each year can be presented as: The original chromosomes is ranked according to the
(1 + i ) P ⋅ i fitness scale and divided into three sub-populations named
C SWT = N ⋅ C sp ⋅ (13) Excellent, Normal and Inferior population. Various
(1 + i ) P − 1 populations evolve parallel and employ the different genetic
where N is the amount of switches, C sp is the current price operator and chosen fitness function respectively.
During the course of evolve, sub-populations exchange
of single switch, i is the discount rate, p is the service lifetime.
some chromosomes by mains of migration mechanism. The
Maintains fee: the maintain fee is given in a proportion to
migration operator is defined as migration rules. By these
investment
mains, the fine genetic information can be transmitted to all
C MIN = C SWT ⋅ η (14) sub-populations.
Customer outage cost: Elite chromosomes are selected to the protective population
m and ranked according to their fitness. When the searching
C COC = ¦P ⋅μ
i =1
i i ⋅ Caoc (i ) (15) procedure is over, the results in the protective population are
optimum and some sub optimum solutions.

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 TABLE Ċ
FEEDER TYPES AND LENGTHS
Migration
operator Feeder type Length (km) Number
1 0.5 1,9,13,14,18,21
2 0.65 4,7,8,12,15,16,19,22
(Excellent (Normal (Inferior
population) population) population) 3 0.8 2,3,5,10,11,17,20

Evolution Evolution Evolution TABLE 

COST OF CUSTOMER OUTAGE ($/kWh)
Duration Resident Government Official Commercial
Protective population
1min. 0.004 0.021 1.602 0.129
20min. 0.044 0.168 3.406 1.014
Judgment
60min 0.243 0.710 7.020 2.951
240min 2.235 3.027 21.212 10.922
Optimum solution
320min 6.778 13.020 38.820 28.020
Fig. 3. Arithmetic structure of Multi-Population Genetic Algorithm

B. Case study and results Other data is given as: feeder failure frequency is
The program for planning feeder switches on a loop 0.13(f/yr), outage duration is 4(h/oc); load point failure
controlled distribution system is developed by the method frequency is 0.01(f/yr), outage duration is 10(h/oc); switch
illustrated above. Take one part of the IEEE RBTS 5 system failure frequency is 0.05(f/yr), outage duration is 12(h/oc);
as example to validate the feasibility of the scheme [5]. Fig.4 switch investment is 3000($/unit), service life is 15(year),
shows the structure of the system. The basic data is taken from discounted rate is 10%; maintain proportion is 10%; line
[6]. Table ĉ,Ċshows the data of customer, feeder separately. resistance is 0.27( ¡ /km), inductance is 0.347( ¡ /km).
Table shows the cost of customer outage in different Considering practice limitation, the selectable position of tie-
duration. switch is constrained in 7-10,10-20 and 18-20.
Table Č  shows the parameter settings of the MPGA.
12 14 16 18 20 Where Pc is the crossover rate; Pm is the mutation rate; Ms is
F1 15 17 19 21 22
11
13 10 the migration scale which in proportion to the population size;
Tie- Mg is the interval generations between two migration
LP8 LP9 LP10 LP11 LP12 LP13 LP7 Switch operations.
1 4 7
TABLE Č
F2 2 3 5 6 8 9 PARAMETER SETTINGS OF MPGA
Population Size Pc Pm Ms Mg (gens.)
LP1 LP2 LP3 LP4 LP5 LP6
Excellent 20 0.4 0.02 20% 3
Fig. 4. Optimal switching devices placement for RBTS BUS 5 (The best Normal 20 0.6 0.05 20% 3
solution)
Inferior 20 0.8 0.1 20% 3
TABLE I
CUSTOMER DATA
Fig. 4 shows the optimal location of sctionalizers and tie-
Number of Load points Customer type Load level per load
switch. Where sectionalizers are located at positions between
load points point (kW)
1-4, 4-7, 12-14, 14-16, 16-18, 18-20, 10-20, tie-switch is
2 1,2 Residential 426.9 located at position between 7-10. Tableč shows the calculate
2 4,6 Residential 417.6 results of system reliability indices and each cost in the
4 9,10,11,13 Residential 321.3 optimal switch arrangement. Compared with the configuration
3 3,5,8 Government 624.7 in IEEE RBTS 5 system, it can be seen that the number and
1 7 Commercial 408.9
location of switches is the same, but the tie-switch position is
different. It is because that line loss is considered as one part
1 12 Office Building 378.6
of the total cost in this optimization scheme.

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 TABLE č
RESULT OF OPTIMAL LOCATING SCHEME
System reliability indices
Total Maintain Outage
SAIFI SAIDI CAIDI ASAI AENS Investment Line loss Reliability
investment s fee per cost
(int/year·c ( ( h/int) (%) (kWh/year·c per year ($) ($) cost ($)
($) year ($) ($)
ust) h/year·cus ust)
0.999
0.3402 3.6806 10.8183 20742 24000 3155.4 315.54 29286 3821 36578
5798

[6] R.Billinton, S.Kumar, N.Chowdhury, “A Reliability Test System for

Educational Purposes - Basic Data”, IEEE Transactions on Power
Systems, Vol.4, pp. 1238-1244

Fig. 5. Optimal solution in each generation approached by Multi-Population

Genetic Algorithm and Simple Genetic Algorithm separately

In addition, for checking up the effect of the improved

Genetic Algorithm, the simple Genetic Algorithm is taken to
approach the optimization problem, the genetic parameter is
set as those of the normal population in the MPGA. Fig.5
shows the distribution of optimal solution in every generation
by using MPGA and SGA separately. It can be seen that the
search process can get global convergent solution at about 15
generation by employing MPGA, but more than 30
generations by employing SGA. Using the two algorithms to
approach optimal solution 100 times separately, the results
show that the global optimal solution can be got in 98 cases by
using MPGA, but only 87 cases can be got by SGA.

VI. CONCLUSIONS
This paper proposes an optimization method of planning
adequate number and location of feeder switches on the loop
controlled distribution system. The objective is to meet the
requirement of service reliability indices at the least reliability
cost. A numerical example is taken to approve the feasibility
of the method. It can be used in the planning of large
complicate distribution system.

REFERENCES
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[2] R. Bono, R. Alexander, A. Dorman, Y.J, Kim and J. Reisdorf,
“Analyzing reliability, a simple yet rigorous approach,” in conf. IEEE
Industry Applications Society 50th Annual, pp. 229 - 237
[3] Ying He, G.Andersson, Ron N.Allan, “Distribution Automation: Its
Impact on Reliability and Benefits of Supply in Distribution Systems,”
Presented at the NORDAC 2000, Trondheim, 22-23 May 2000.
[4] F.Soudi, K.Tomsovic, “Optimized Distribution Protection Using Binary
Programming”, IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, Vol. 13, pp.218-224
[5] Roy Billinton, Satish Jonnavithula, “A Test System for Teaching Overall
Power System Reliability Assessment”, IEEE Transactions on Power
Systems, Vol.11, pp.1663-1669

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