Seyed Mohammad Hashemi - Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran
Shahrokh Barati - Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran
Saeed Talati - Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Shahid Sattari University of Aeronautical Engineering, Tehran, Iran
Heshmat Noori - Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Shahid Sattari University of Aeronautical Engineering, Tehran, Iran

This paper proposes a genetic algorithm-based method for determining the optimal number and location of switching and protective equipment such as sectionalizers, cut-out fuses and reclosers in distribution network. The presence of a wide range of transient faults in the distribution network means that each switching and protective devices has a different impact on the reliability indices. Installation of switching and protective equipment on the distribution network reduces the duration of outages and improves network reliability, but the high price of some of these devices encourages any attempt to optimize their numbers and location. In this paper, objective function has incorporated the cost of protective equipment and profit gained from reducing unsupplied energy costs, and then a number of constraints have been added to improve the reliability indices. In the end, the Performance of the proposed method has been evaluated by implementing it on a 15-bus network model

switching and protective equipment, optimal placement, genetic algorithm, fault detection and isolation