Optimization based approach to solve phase balancing problem in the distribution system

Abstract

With the changes occurring in the power distribution systems, such as the inclusion of new loads and sources such as electric vehicles and renewable energy sources the unbalance factor increases, which may lead an increase in system losses, and voltage unbalance. Thus, remedial actions to balance the power distribution systems are needed. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an approach, that considers phase switching, reactive power supports from PV s, and tap operations of the voltage regulators into consideration. The proposed model is tested on a modified IEEE 123 Bus Test System with photovoltaics and electric vehicles. A recently developed heuristics algorithm named Grey Wolf Optimization method was utilized to perform tests on an instant of time of a day and a daily based simulation. From the results it was observed that using all devices in an hierarchical way is able to solve the voltage unbalance problem.