risk-based switch placement in electric distribution network in the presence of performance-based regulation

A reward and penalty scheme (rps) is used for setting up the service quality which exposes the distribution companies to financial benefits caused by demand for the reliability of customers. in this paper, an algorithm for the optimal switch number and placement in distribution networks in the presence of rps is presented. the primary objective is reliability improvement and minimization of the cost of sectionalizing switches (ss) and tie switches (ts) for a given regulatory period considering acceptable financial risk. in this algorithm, the uncertainty in the reliability is appeared as financial risk. a genetic algorithm is adopted to solve the optimization problem. the number and location of ss and ts is found while financial incentives of rps, capital investment and annual operation and maintenance costs are considered. the performance of the proposed approach is assessed and illustrated on a real distribution network. the results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.