Rapid Power Restoration and Network Reconfiguration for Power Distribution System Reliability Enhancement: A Case Study on Bahir Dar Power Distribution Systems

Reliability improvement of power distribution systems is pre-request for economic and social development of any country. Currently, there is rapid growth of industrial, commercial, residential and other service providing institutions. All of these institutions need reliable power supply. Due to this, utilities must work hard and ensure that the customers are getting the reliable power supply. However, higher power interruption frequency and longer interruption duration is the most serious problem facing Ethiopian power distribution systems and this problem affects day to day activity of customers. In this paper, rapid power restoration and network reconfiguration using optimal placement of switching/automating devices is performed. Network reconfiguration and rapid power restoration is performed to improve the reliability problem of Bahir Dar power distribution system. Optimal placement of switching/automating devices for network reconfiguration is determined by Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimization technique using MAT LAB software and rapid power restoration is carried out by Prim’s Algorithm (PA) used for constructing Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) in MAT LAB software. The study is tested at Bata 34-bus feeder of Bahir Dar distribution system. The existing network is assessed and the reliability indices such as SAIFI, SAIDI, ASAI, CAIDI and EENS are evaluated using ETAP 12.6.0 software.