Optimal Placement of Distribution substations with The Purpose of Reducing Losses and Energy Not Supplied by A Multi-Objective Function and Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) Optimization Algorithm

Due to the increasing load growth and expansion and significant changes in structure of electricity distribution networks, the issues related to the optimization of these networks face many challenges. Optimal placement and capacity of Distribution substations and their feeder networks are among the important issues of optimization of distribution networks from technical and economic viewpoints. In this paper, considering two important factors including loss reduction and improvement of reliability in distribution networks, a new multi-objective function was presented for optimal placement of location and capacity of Distribution substations based on their service area. The proposed objective function includes all construction and operation costs of equipment, loss costs, and reliability index (Energy Not Supplied). The Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm was applied to optimize the proposed objective function with the purpose of determining the optimal placement and capacity of substations of two sample distribution networks. A comparison of results obtained from optimization of the proposed objective function by the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm with results of other algorithms in two sample networks indicates the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and objective function.