Tree-Structure Based Deterministic Algorithms for Optimal Switch Placement in Radial Distribution Networks

The problem of the optimal placement of sectionalizing switches in radial distribution networks is studied. Tree-structure based algorithms for the computation of performance indexes for the given positions of sectionalizing switches are presented. It is shown that the algorithms are very efficient and can be useful in search methods that require the evaluation of reliability indexes for a large number of test selections. Efficient deterministic algorithms are presented to find the optimal allocation of a given number of sectionalizing switches to minimize a selected performance/reliability index. The performance of the algorithms is assessed using the existing distribution networks of various sizes. It is shown that the proposed algorithms outperform the state-of-the-art approaches in terms of computational efficiency.