Network reconfiguration is an effective approach to reduce the power losses in distribution system. Recent studies have shown that the reconfiguration problem considering load profiles can give a significant improvement on the distribution network performance. This work proposes a novel method to determine the optimal daily configuration based on variable photovoltaic (PV) generation output and the load profile data. A good combination and coordination between these two varying data may give the lowest power loss in the system. Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) is applied to determine the optimum tie switches positions for 33-Bus distribution system. GSA based proposed method is also compared with Evolutionary Programming (EP) to examine the effectiveness of GSA algorithm. Obtained results show that the proposed optimal daily configuration method is able to improve the distribution network performance in term of its power loss reduction, number of switching minimization and voltage profile improvement.

This paper presents a new method to determine the best configuration for a distribution system for a day considering Photovoltaic (PV) generation and load profile. In the first part, the hourly optimal configuration for a day is obtained by using Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) and in second part; a selective approach based on minimum total daily power loss is used to select the optimal daily configuration. The proposed method is validated on IEEE 33 bus test system.

This study analyse the impact of different distributed generation (DG) operating modes towards the system performance when network reconfiguration, DG generation and tap changer setting are simultaneously configure to optimal value. The main consideration in the optimal configuration process is to minimise daily power losses. For the purpose of optimisation, imperialist competitive algorithm is applied. Analysis is conducted based on safety margin of total DGs penetration, photovoltaic generation based on daily irradiance and daily load profile. The analysis of different DG mode of operations is conducted using IEEE 33 having five tie‐switches and one on‐load tap changer.