Soft Computing Techniques Applied to Distribution Network Reconfiguration: A Survey of the State-of-the-Art

Network reconfiguration is the process of alteringthe topological structure of distribution feeders to achievemore reliable and economic operation of distribution network. Distribution Network Reconfiguration (DNR) is a multiobjective, combinatorial, non-differentiable constrainedoptimization problem. This strategy nowadays is veryfrequently used by distribution engineers to meet variousobjectives like loss minimization and power qualityenhancement. This paper describes the various possibleobjectives and constraints of radial network reconfiguration. This paper also presents a comprehensive review of variousstrategies of network reconfiguration which are mainly basedon heuristic methods and intelligent optimization algorithm.