Optimal switching device placement in radial distribution systems

This paper presents a new formulation for sectionalizing device placement taking into consideration outage, maintenance and investments costs. The formulation of sectionalizing switches is a combinatorial constrained optimization problem with a non-linear, non-differentiable objective function. A solution methodology based on the optimization technique of simulated annealing, is proposed to determine (i) the number of sectionalizing switches and (ii) the locations of the switches. The proposed solution methodology can offer a global optimal solution for the sectionalizing device placement problem which includes the reliability,investment and maintenance costs.