Determination of switching sequence of Service Restoration in Distribution Systems: Application and analysis on a real and large-scale radial system

It is computationally hard to solve the Service Restoration (SR) problem for large-scale Distribution Systems (DSs) without any system simplification, since this problem is combinatorial and non-linear, involving several constraints and objectives. The methodology named MEAN-MH+ES has proved able to generate feasible solutions (radial configuration attending all the operational constraints) with relatively soft computing and without requiring any network simplification in several tests performed on the real and large-scale DS of Londrina city (Brazil). The MEAN-MH+ES combines Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithm with Node-Depth Encoding, Multiple-criteria tables, alarming Heuristic and an Exhaustive search. However, as the majority of the methodologies for solving the SR problem, the MEAN-MH+ES does not provide a feasible sequence of switching operations to reach the final configuration (the feasible solution) from the initial configuration (the configuration with the faulted areas identified and isolated). This paper proposes to incorporate a heuristic procedure into MEAN-MH+ES, which enable to provide a Feasible Sequence of Switching Operations (FSSO), that is, a switching operation sequence that generates only intermediate configurations that respect the operational constraints. The proposed heuristic procedure is confirmed on tests performed on the real and large-scale DS of Londrina city.