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Distribution System Reconguration Under Uncertain

Load and Renewable Generation
Hossein Haghighat, Member, IEEE, and Bo Zeng, Member, IEEE

AbstractIncreasing penetration of variable loads and renewable generation will cause the conventional operation strategy
of the distribution system to become less certain and effective.
This paper presents a method of determining the minimum loss
network conguration of a distribution system with uncertain
load and renewable generation. A robust optimization model is
proposed wherein the optimal decisions on network congurations and losses are derived in two subsequent steps. The rst
step enforces the radiality constraint before knowing the actual
system loads and output level of renewable generation. Power
ows are computed next to achieve minimum network losses
considering the worst operating conditions over the uncertainty
sets. A mixed-integer two-stage robust optimization formulation
and a decomposition algorithm in a master-slave structure are
proposed to solve the problem. Results of an illustrative example
and two test systems are presented to demonstrate the proposed
method.

Variables
Real and reactive power ow of feeder
in pu.
Real and reactive power of the -th segment
of the linear loss approximation in pu.
Real and reactive power ow variables
used for loss function approximation in pu.
Real and reactive power ow of the
substation transformer at node in pu.
Real and reactive demands at node in pu.
Real power generation of DG at node in
pu.
Connection status of feeder
:1
connected; 0 disconnected.
Binary variable which is equal to 1 if is
the parent node of .
Variable used in master problem of the
solution algorithm.
Dummy objective function of the rst
stage problem.
Nodal injections of real and reactive power.

Index TermsDistribution system, reconguration, renewable

generation, robust optimization, uncertainty.

NOTATION
Index and Set
Set/number of load buses.

Variables used for describing uncertainty

sets of load and DG power.

Set/number of substation buses.

Set/number of time periods.
Set of network branches indexed by

Uncertainty sets pertaining to the real and

reactive power demand and DG generation.
Indices of nodes.
Index of time period running from 1 to

Parameters
Number of hours in period .
Resistance of the branch

in pu.

Number of DG units.

DG power factor at node .

Number of linear segments for loss function

approximation.
Index of intervals used for linear approximation
of the loss function running from 1 to .
Index of iteration in the solution algorithm.
denotes variable introduced in iteration
.

Initial status of a network switch

associated with feeder
: 1 closed; 0
open.
Number of switching actions.

Manuscript received November 07, 2014; revised February 18, 2015, May 13,
2015, and August 08, 2015; accepted September 21, 2015. Paper no. TPWRS01538-2014.
H. Haghighat is with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Islamic Azad University, Jahrom branch 7419685768, Iran (e-mail:
haghighat@jia.ac.ir).
B. Zeng is with the Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA (e-mail: bzeng@pitt.edu).
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPWRS.2015.2481508

Equals
.
Denotes iteration counter of the
algorithm.
Lower bounds of real and reactive loads
and DG power at node in pu.
Deviations from lower bounds of real and
reactive demands and DG power at node
in pu.
Positive integers belonging to sets
, and
.

0885-8950 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

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Symbols
Denotes the absolute value operation; or the
rounding down operation to an integer.
Denotes optimal value.
Denotes complementarity conditions.
I. INTRODUCTION

CONFIGURATING a distribution network is an effective method for reducing losses, mitigating operational
constraint violations, and improving system performance. Early
studies [1], [2] have shown that by changing the status of tie and
sectionalizing switches, a radial conguration with minimum
losses can be attained. The resulting topology, however, depends
on various input parameters and needs to be updated on a daily,
monthly, or seasonal basis to adapt to the changes in the system
operating condition. With increased penetration of variable renewable distributed generation (DG) and random loads, changes
in system conditions are likely to be more frequent necessitating
the introduction of a exible reconguration mechanism to ensure operational goals are met.
From an optimization perspective, network reconguration is
a complex optimization problem with discrete and continuous
control variables. An efcient solution for this problem requires the selection of the most appropriate topology among all
feasible congurations. Mathematical programming methods
and heuristic algorithms have been employed to solve this
problem with the objective of loss reduction or other objectives
such as maximization of load balance among feeders, reducing
the number of switching actions, etc. Within the paradigm of
mathematical programming, more recently proposed convex
and mixed-integer linear models [3][7] have gained widespread applications as they can be efciently solved to global
optimality using standard solvers. Farivar et al. [3] proposed
a conic quadratic model for reactive power management of a
distribution system considering photovoltaic DG and capacitor
switching. Jabr et al. [4] developed mixed-integer linear and
conic programs for the problem of minimum loss distribution
network reconguration. This formulation is based on the conic
quadratic format of the power ow equations. In a related
approach, Taylor et al. developed mixed-integer quadratic,
quadratically constrained, and second-order cone programming
models of distribution system reconguration [5]. Ahmadi and
Marti proposed a mixed-integer quadratic model for distribution system optimization based on a linear load ow model
that considers a voltage-dependent load model [6]. Different
control variables such as switchable capacitors and system conguration are considered in the model. The work in [7] derived
mixed-integer linear and quadratic models for reconguring a
distribution system integrated with storage units. In addition to
the classical optimization approach, many heuristic methods
have been utilized to solve the optimum network conguration
problem including exhaustive search [8], simulated annealing
[9], tabu search [10], and genetic algorithms [11], [12]. They are
popular and have broad applications but their global solution
optimality is yet to be established.
To address the uncertainty of input data, fuzzy methods
and stochastic programming are proposed in the literature.
Stochastic programming models uncertainty by probability
distributions while fuzzy approach converts equations into

fuzzy expressions and represents uncertain data with fuzzy

numbers [13], [14]. In addition to uncertainty modeling, fuzzy
approach has been used in the multiobjective network reconguration wherein conicting objectives are transformed into
fuzzy relations and are simultaneously optimized [15].
Another avenue of research on uncertainty modeling considered the use of two-stage robust optimization methods where information is revealed in subsequent stages. These methods consider two sets of variables such that the rst must be computed
before the disclosure of the uncertainty and the second one can
be determined after the uncertainty has been revealed. In this
context, robustness refers to a solution that can protect the decision maker against any adverse realization of the uncertainty.
Examples of recently developed two-stage robust methods in
the context of power system are [16][21]. A robust transmission expansion planning problem under uncertain data is presented in [16]. Two-stage robust unit commitment models are
developed in [17], [21] to compute unit commitment decisions
subject to the presence of nodal injection uncertainty. In [18],
Jabr et al. use robust optimization to minimize the investment
in storage units that guarantee a feasible system operation. An
and Zeng [19] presented new types of variants of two-stage robust unit commitment models for handling variability of load
and contingencies. In [20] price uncertainty intervals are constructed for minimizing the payment of residential consumers
in a demand response program.
Given the variability of the system loads and renewable energy, the deterministic reconguration model may lead to undesired results if the randomness of the input parameters is not
considered. Ensuring the solution robustness is thus important
to protect against adverse operating conditions. This paper aims
to address this specic problem; it presents a novel method for
obtaining a robust minimum loss network conguration under
uncertain load and renewable generation that is applicable to
both originally radial and meshed networks. A two-stage optimization model is proposed in which decision variables are
computed in two stages: the rst stage enforces the radiality
constraint of the distribution network before system loads and
the output power of renewable resources are realized. Given the
topology determined in the rst step, power ows are computed,
after the load and renewable generation is revealed, to achieve
minimum network losses. Overall, the uncertainty of the data
is modeled with continuous uncertainty sets and a mixed-integer robust optimization model is developed and solved using
a master-slave problem framework.
In view of the above discussion, the main contributions of this
paper are:
1) The development of a two-stage robust optimization
model to formulate the distribution system reconguration
problem to achieve the minimum loss under uncertain
load and generation.
2) The development of a decomposition algorithm that can
efciently solve the problem to optimality considering
continuous uncertainty sets. And a systematic numerical
study to demonstrate the effectiveness of reconguration
to handle random load and generation.
This paper begins with the mathematical formulation of the
reconguration problem. Then, the robust formulation is presented and the solution algorithm is described. An example and
two test systems are provided next to illustrate the proposed
method and relevant conclusions are nally drawn.

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HAGHIGHAT AND ZENG: DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM RECONFIGURATION UNDER UNCERTAIN LOAD AND RENEWABLE GENERATION

(1k)
(1l)
(1m)
Fig. 1. Schematic of decision steps.

II. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

A. Assumptions
Distribution systems are mostly operated in radial congurations and are dynamically recongured on a daily, weekly,
or seasonal basis to reduce losses. In this work, we consider a
short horizon of 24 hours wherein the operator of the distribution system determines the minimum loss network conguration
for the following day based on the load-generation estimates.
No specic initial topology is assumed and the network can be
radial or meshed originally. We assume that the distribution operator has short-term forecasts of the system load and renewable
generation, and models the uncertainty of these forecasts with
continuous uncertainty sets. Since in practice network switches
are operated few times per day, to avoid reduced life time, we
also assume that the status of the switches determined in the day
ahead will remain unchanged over the entire time periods of the
following day. In real time and after the realization of load-generation, real and reactive power ows are computed to achieve
minimum network losses. Fig. 1 shows the schematic of the decision-making procedure.
B. Problem Formulation
The deterministic network reconguration problem can be
written as the following optimization problem using a linear
load ow model:
(1a)

(1b)

is
where the nonlinear branch loss
approximated by the objective function (1a) assuming that the
pu [5], [10]. Constraints (1b)(1g) repnode voltage
resent power ow equations based on a linear load ow model.
Power ow limits of feeders are enforced by (1d)(1e). Note
that the upper and lower bounds are multiplied by the binary
which is equal to 1 if the branch between nodes
variable
and
is connected. Equation (1h) denes the nodal injections of real and reactive power which are equal to the net of
the DG power and load consumption. The radiality constraints
are stated by (1i)(1k) based on the spanning tree formulation in
[4]. The limit on the number of switching actions is expressed
by (1l) where a quadratic form is adopted here. This constraint
can be expressed in a linear form as will be discussed later in
this section. Finally, (1m) denes the binary variables of the
problem. The dual variables of constraint (1b)(1e) are provided
after colon (which are used in the next section for deriving the
KKT conditions of the second stage recourse problem).
Problem (1) is a quadratic mixed-integer model because of
the quadratic objective function (1a) and constraint (1l). These
relations can be expressed in linear forms as follows. First recall
it directly follows that
that for any binary variable
. Hence, constraint (1l) can be equivalently written in the
linear form (2):

(2)
The quadratic loss function (1a) can be approximated by a piecewise linear function. In doing so, let us assume linear segments
and
, and write them in the form
for power ows
below (see Fig. 2):
(3a)
(3b)

(1c)
(3c)
(1d)

(3d)

(1e)

Therefore, the quadratic loss function (1a) can be approximated

by (4):

(1f)
(4)
(1g)

(1h)
(1i)
(1j)

where
and
represent the slopes of the -th linear
segment, as shown in Fig. 2. The convexity of loss function
and
meaning that
ensures that
and
reach their upper limits whenever
and
are nonzero in any optimal solution. Since
and

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such that
. The uncertainty sets
and
are similarly dened. The last inequality is often called the
budget constraint in robust optimization noting that the posi(and
pertaining to the reactive power demand
tive
and DG power) serves as a budget to control the maximum
number of loads that can deviate from their nominal values.
, the nominal model is obtained,
Thus, by setting
the model is completely protected against
while if
the all-upper bound real power realization. Between these two
is introduced to dene the scaled
extreme cases, variable
deviation of the real power demand from its estimated value
. Therefore, the robust reconguration problem can be
written in the following form:
Fig. 2. Piecewise linear approximation of the quadratic function.

(6a)
are nonnegative, to account for the reverse (negative) power
ows in the above formulation, the non-negative variables
, and
are introduced:

(5a)

(5b)

(5c)
(5d)
(5e)
(5f)
(5g)
The dual variable associated with each constraint is also provided in (5). Note that formulation (5) requires no integer variable and by increasing the number of intervals , the piecewise linear function can approximate the quadratic loss with the
desired accuracy and can be computed much more efciently
by solvers. Finally, substituting the linear equations above in
problem (1) leads to a mixed-integer linear model.
When nodal injections in (1h) are equal to their estimated
values, problem (1) denes the deterministic model. However,
they are not known with certainty and might deviate from
their estimated (nominal) values. In order to model the unand
certainty, we assume that the real power demand
take values in the intervals
the reactive power demand
and the DG output
power belongs to the range
such that
, and
. The uncertainty
is dened as:
set associated with the real power demand

where
and

(6b)
(6c)

In (6a)(6c),
represents the cost associated with the
and
. Because they are determined
rst stage decisions
to enforce radiality of the network (before random load and
renewable energy generation are realized) and do not incur any
is set to zero in this paper context. Then,
expenses,
given the network topology, the maximization operator is to
seek the worst case situation of load and renewable energy
generation that causes the value of inner most minimization
problem as large as possible. The inner most minimization
problem, which is the second stage decision problem (also
known as the recourse decision problem) with the xed
topology in the rst stage and the revealed uncertainty, is
essentially an optimal power ow problem minimizing network
losses.
Remark 1:
i) The tri-level problem in (6) is complicated and solving
it is challenging. Nevertheless, for some special cases,
it can be reduced to regular single-level mixed in, and
teger linear programs. For instance, if sets
are singletons, that is,
, and
, noting that the
maximization operation over those singletons disappears,
this tri-level model reduces to a min-min formulation and
then is equivalent to our single-level (piecewise-linear)
deterministic minimization model in (1). Similarly, as
, and
are sets
demonstrated in [22], when
dened with discrete scenarios, this tri-level model is
equivalent to minimize a single-level problem that enumeratrively includes recourse variables and constraints
of each scenario and has an objective function equal to
the maximal recourse cost among all scenarios.
, and
are general polytopes, sceii) Indeed, when
narios derived from their extreme points, which are discrete and nite, can equally replace those convex sets
in (6). Hence, a single-level level equivalent formulation can be obtained by enumerating extreme point sce, and
. Nevertheless, such single-level
narios of

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equivalent form is a very large-scale mixed integer program, which is not feasible to compute for real systems.
To avoid such computational burden, we adopt and customize a master-subproblem algorithm, i.e., the columnand-constraint generation method developed in [22], to
compute (6), which continually identies and considers a
, and
) to approxicritical scenario subset of (
mate the original model. This procedure terminates when
lower and upper bounds match and we can report an optimal solution to (6). Next, we describe how to identify a
critical scenario.
Given a xed topology, (i.e., the rst stage decisions) the
remaining problem is a difcult bi-level max-min problem,
whose solution determines the worst nodal injection scenario
within the uncertainty set. Nevertheless, because the inner most
minimization problem is a linear program, it can be replaced
by its KKT conditions that are necessary and sufcient conditions of optimality. Then, by merging with the maximization
problem, the bilevel optimization problem can be reformulated
as follows:

(7q)
(7r)
(7s)

(7t)

(7u)
(7v)
(7w)
(7x)
(7y)
(7z)

(7a)

(7za)
(7zb)

(7b)

(7zc)

(7m)

and the
where the real power load
reactive power load
as well as the
DG output power
are substituted
in the right-hand side of the power balance equations (7t)(7u)
(along with the corresponding budget constraints dened with
, and
on
, and
.
Problem (7), which is referred to as the subproblem (or slave
problem) in the algorithm described in the following, is a nonlinear program due to the complementarity slackness conditions.
Indeed, those nonlinear terms can be readily reformulated as
linear constraints by making use of
where is a sufciently
large positive scalar. As a result, the problem (7) can be converted into a mixed-integer linear program and solved by a mixed
integer programming solver. Furthermore, based on [22], it can
, and
be proven that an optimal solution is with
being binary for all
. In another word, an optimal solution
is dened with an extreme point scenario of the uncertainty set.
With the subproblem (7) to identify critical (extreme point)
scenarios, we next give the required details on customizing the
column-and-constraint generation algorithm [22] to solve the
original tri-level problem in (6).

(7n)

C. Solution Method

(7c)
(7d)
(7e)
(7f)
(7g)
(7h)
(7i)
(7j)
(7k)
(7l)

(7o)
(7p)

The following method involves solving a mixed-integer

linear master problem and the subproblem (7) iteratively.
The master problem is formed with all critical scenarios (i.e.,
their associated recourse variables and constraints) created by
computing (7), up to the current iteration.

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Denote the optimal solution of the master problem as:

. Update the
lower bound of the objective by
.

Algorithm for solving problem (6)

Step 1) Initialization

Step 3) Slave Problem Solution

Dene lower bound

and upper bound
of the
objective function. Set
, and the
.
iteration counter
Step 2) Master Problem Solution
Solve the following master problem (variables with the
superscript
are introduced in iteration
):
(8a)

and
Solve the slave problem (7) assuming that
are xed to the solution produced from the
master problem in Step 2. Derive the worst case nodal
injections as well as the objective function value
. Update the upper
and set
bound as
and update
.
Step 4) Convergence Test

(8b)

(8c)

(8d)
(8e)
(8f)

(8g)

(8h)

(8i)

(8j)
(8k)
(8l)
(8m)
(8n)
(8o)
(8p)

If the upper and lower bounds of the objective are equal,

namely
is sufciently small, stop. Otherwise go
back to Step 2.
Remark 2:
i) As mentioned earlier, the master problem (8) is constructed, in addition to the rst-stage variables and
constraints, with consideration of all critical second-stage
scenarios created so far. Those scenarios are mathematically represented by their associated recourse variables
and constraints dened in (8c)(8p). In line with our discussion in Remark 1, variable which is to be minimized
in (8a), is introduced to represent the maximal recourse
cost amongst all scenarios (generated up to the current
iteration).
ii) The whole algorithm dynamically approximates the solution from above and below and improves these bounds
until they merge [22]. As shown in Step 2, in each iteration, the master problem is augmented with a new scenario, i.e., considering a new set of recourse variables and
constraints (8b)(8n) and (8o) for a critical scenario identied in Step 3 by solving the subproblem (7). According
to [22], because scenarios created so far constitute a scenario subset of (
, and
), the master problem is
a lower-bound approximation to (6). At the same time, as
shown in Step 3, the worst-scenario performance with respect to the complete uncertainty set (
, and
)
for a xed network conguration, i.e., a solution from the
master problem, provides an upper bound. We proceed
with this algorithm and will see the difference between
the lower and upper bounds reduce. Convergence is guaranteed due to the fact that the number of extreme points
of a polytope is nite.
iii) Note that the structure of the master problem is similar to a stochastic programming formulation dened
with respect to scenarios, given that recourse variables
and constraints are introduced (in a dynamic manner)
in it for each identied scenario. Consequently, it increases the dimensionality of the master problem. However, comparing with the existing Benders decomposition method, the number of iterations before its convergence is drastically reduced, which can be seen in the
following section, as well as in the numerical studies in
[18], [19].

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HAGHIGHAT AND ZENG: DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM RECONFIGURATION UNDER UNCERTAIN LOAD AND RENEWABLE GENERATION

TABLE I
OPTIMAL CONFIGURATIONS: THE 70-NODE SYSTEM

TABLE II
COMPARISON OF LOSSES: THE 70-NODE SYSTEM

Fig. 3. Optimal topology variations because of varying loading conditions in

a simple system: (a) original topology; (b) optimal topology with nominal load
and zero DG power; (c) optimal topology with nominal load and non-zero DG
power; (d) optimal topology with non-zero DG power and reduced load.

III. NUMERICAL RESULTS

In this section a simple example and two test systems are used
to illustrate the proposed method, as described next. Our study
is implemented in AMPL and solved using CPLEX [24], on a
Windows-based PC with two 3 GHz processors and 4 GB RAM.
A. Example
A simple 4-node distribution network is employed to illustrate the impacts of varying loading conditions on the minimum
loss network topology. The original conguration is shown in
Fig. 3(a). The system data is provided in the Appendix. One DG
unit is connected at node 4 and can generate power in the range
[0, 30] kW. The load at node 3 is uncertain and varies by
%.
Three cases are analyzed as follows. In case 1, the load at node
3 is equal to its nominal value and the DG power is zero. The
reconguration result with network losses of 6.3 kW is shown in
Fig. 3(b). In case 2, load is as in case 1 but the DG output power
increases from zero to 25 kW. The resulting conguration with
losses being equal to 4.1 kW is shown in Fig. 3(c).
In the third case, the DG output power is as in case 2 but the
load at node 3 decreases by 42%. The resulting conguration is
depicted in Fig. 3(d) with losses being equal to 2.8 kW.
Note that different optimal topologies are obtained as the operating conditions change. Results of this simple example highlight that when the input data is uncertain, to obtain relevant results, the randomness of the data should be incorporated in the
reconguration problem.
B. The 70-Node and 119-Node Systems
Two distribution systems are simulated. The rst test system is
a 11-kV distribution system having two substations, four feeders,
70 nodes, and 78 branches (including tie branches). Data of this
system is provided in [15]. The original system loads are 4.47
MW and 3.06 MVAr. The second test system is a 119-node distribution network. The data of this system is provided [10]. This
system has 118 sectionalizing switches and 15 tie switches and
its base demands are 22.71 MW and 17.04 MVAr.

These systems have no DG resources in their original congurations. Hence, a placement study was carried out rst to
identify the optimal DG allocation using a Benders decomposition based optimization procedure presented in [25]. As a result, three DG units of equal sizes of 0.5 MVA were allocated
at nodes 28, 48, and 65 of the rst system, and four DG units
with each of them having a capacity of 2.0 MVA were placed at
nodes 52, 77, 100, and 115 of the second system. We will also
study the impacts of reconguration on network losses when
DG units are not properly placed noting that in the deregulated
environment, distribution utilities may not have direct control
over the DG location. This analysis can provide useful insights
to improve the system performance.
To approximate the branch loss function, we used ve linear
segments of equal sizes for real and reactive power ows. This linearization technique was applied to the entire network branches.
The uncertainty sets were constructed as follows. The daily
load prole consisting of 24 hours was generated using the data
in the IEEE-RTS which corresponds to a summer week-day. We
assumed that in each hour the real and reactive demand at each
node of the distribution systems can deviate by 20 percent from
their estimated (i.e., nominal forecast) values.
That is, they take values in the intervals
and
. To model the variability
of the DG generation it was assumed that the output of each DG
unit can deviate from its rated output by 40 percent. That is, the
DG output power varies in the range
.
Thus, three separate uncertainty sets were constructed for nodal
loads and DG power. The proposed algorithm was then applied
to solve the problem.
The optimum congurations and the network losses of the
deterministic and robust models of the 70-node system are presented in Table I. Deterministic here refers to the model with
nominal loads and DG power. Notice the difference between
the optimal topologies obtained using these two methods. The
losses of the robust model are higher which are to be expected
mainly because this model tries to immunize the system against
any undesired load and generation uncertainties. Table II compares the losses of the nominal and the worst loading scenarios.
In this context, the worst scenario refers to the loading conditions in which 70 percent of the nodal loads (i.e.,

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TABLE III
IMPACTS OF RECONFIGURATION ON LOSSES WITH OPTIMAL
AND NON-OPTIMAL DG PLACE: THE 70-NODE SYSTEM

TABLE VI
IMPACTS OF RECONFIGURATION ON LOSSES WITH OPTIMAL
AND NON-OPTIMAL DG PLACE: THE 119-NODE SYSTEM

TABLE IV
OPTIMAL CONFIGURATION: THE 119-NODE SYSTEM

model is seen from Table V showing a noticeable difference between the worst losses of the robust and deterministic models.
A similar study was carried out to examine the reconguration results with non-optimally located DG units. The results are
provided in Table VI corresponding to 4 DG units of identical
sizes placed at nodes 11, 29, 81, and 119 representing non-optimal locations. Losses of the worst scenario (i.e., pertaining
to the robust model) are compared before and after reconguration. Obviously positive contributions of reconguration are
observed in both cases. As in the previous test system, the reduction of losses is much larger when DG units are not placed
in the optimal locations (i.e., losses decrease from 34.4 to 27.2
MW after reconguration).
The advantage of the robust model is evident from the results
in Tables II and V. It is seen that by implementing the solution
of the robust model, the distribution operator can avoid larger
losses under severe circumstances while maintaining network
losses close to the losses of the nominal scenario should it occur.
Note that the deterministic method is preferred only when the
forecasted data are fully available and accurate.

TABLE V
COMPARISON OF LOSSES: THE 119-NODE SYSTEM

C. Characterization of Uncertainty Settings

where two substations are left out) and 100
percent of the power output of the three DG units (i.e.,
)
deviate from their estimated values. Note that when the load
and generation forecasts are exact, lower losses are achieved
by implementing the deterministic conguration. On the other
hand, with uncertain input data, implementing the deterministic
topology will lead to higher losses if the worst condition occurs.
In Table III, losses are compared for the optimal and non-optimal DG locations. Results are presented for the robust model.
In this table the optimal location denotes locations that have the
maximum impact on loss reduction (in the case of the 70-node
system, the optimally located DG will reduce losses by 65%
while the non-optimally located ones at nodes 4, 22, and 40, will
reduce losses by 24.6%). It is seen from Table III that reconguration will reduce losses in the both optimal and non-optimal
cases but this reduction is clearly larger (i.e., from 6.67 MW to
5.62 MW) when DG is not properly placed. This indicates that
reconguration can effectively help reducing network losses
and mitigating the undesired impacts of improperly located DG
units.bf
The results of the 119-node system are presented in
Tables IVVI. The optimum congurations are provided in
Table IV. Losses are compared in Table V. Deviations of loads
and generation are set as in the previous test system with
and
corresponding
to 70 percent and 100 percent load and generation protection,
respectively. Similar observations concerning losses and congurations also hold in this case. The advantage of the robust

In this subsection, various experiments are conducted to evaluate the effects of parameter settings pertaining to the uncertainty
sets. In addition, through Monte Carlo simulations, we discuss the
performance of the models and solutions in numerical way.
The change in network losses caused by the number of deviation or the magnitude of deviation was assessed. Typical
results are presented in Tables VII and VIII. It is seen from
Table VII that by increasing
from 10% to 90% and
maintaining
xed at 100%, the losses of the 70-node and
119-nodel systems would increase from 4.31 and 17.0 MW to
5.15 and 19.50 MW, respectively. This is to be expected because when increases, a larger number of loads can deviate
from their nominal values. In Table VIII, losses are computed
with
(which is equal to 48 and 82 for
the 70-node and 119-node systems) and
, but the load
deviation is varied from
to
and the DG power deviis increased from
to
. Notice the
ation
increase in losses as the deviation magnitude increases.
In addition to the above experiments, the performance of the
robust method was compared with the deterministic method
under different deviation values with similar protection levels.
Results of both methods are presented in Table IX. It is seen
that as the deviation values increase, the losses of both methods
as well as their differences increase accordingly. Clearly, variability affects the solution outcomes. Nevertheless, given that
the result of robust method is less sensitive, it can avoid larger
losses under highly variable load and renewable generation.
Hence, the utility can save by implementing the solution of the

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HAGHIGHAT AND ZENG: DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM RECONFIGURATION UNDER UNCERTAIN LOAD AND RENEWABLE GENERATION

IMPACTS

OF

TABLE VII
PROTECTION LEVELS
LOSSES WITH

AND

ON

NETWORK

TABLE X
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ROBUST AND DETERMINISTIC SOLUTIONS

TABLE VIII
IMPACT OF DEVIATION VALUES ON NETWORK LOSSES
WITH
AND
TABLE XI
COMPUTATIONAL BURDEN OF THE PROPOSED METHOD

TABLE IX
IMPACT OF DEVIATION VALUES ON NETWORK LOSSES
WITH
AND

robust model while it will not lose much even if the nominal
scenario takes place, which is unlikely due to the random nature
of the load and renewable generation.
The impact of imposing limits on the number of switching
actions on network losses was also investigated. To this end, we
computed the losses of the deterministic model by setting the
maximum number of switching actions to 10 and 5. The losses
of the 70-node and 119-node systems increased from 3.92 and
14.63 MW to 3.97 and 15.25 MW, respectively (this conclusions
is also valid for the robust model). In general, the network loss
will increase as the number of switching reduces reaching its
maximum at zero switching.
To see the benet of utilizing the robust method, a scenario
analysis was carried out using 5000 randomly created load-generation samples. Two sets of load and generation samples, referred to as the moderate and extreme, were created for each
system using uniform distributions. Data of the moderate samples were selected in the ranges
and
, and the data of the extreme samples in the
ranges
, and
.

Parameters
and
were set to
and
, respectively. The moderate set represents that our uncertainty set
nicely captures the underlying randomness in the load and renewable generation, and the extreme set represents a situation
where the actual uncertainties are far beyond our understanding.
Table X summarizes the simulation results providing performance of these models in simulated scenarios. It is seen that
the robust model typically outperforms the deterministic one in
all cases in handling randomness, especially in extreme cases,
in terms of the measurements given in the table.
Finally, the computational burden of the algorithm is presented in Table XI. The algorithm converges to the optimum
after 23 iterations depending on the problem settings. The
average solution times of the master problem and the slave
problem are provided in this table. Each instance of the master
problem takes longer to solve whereas the slave problem is
solved faster. This is so because the size of the master problem
increases in each iteration while the dimension of the slave
problem remains unchanged.
The proposed method can be used in a direct manner to determine the optimum radial conguration over longer operating
horizons such as weekly or monthly time periods provided that
the status of the switching equipments can be assumed xed
within such periods. Moreover, if the uncertainty of the input
data is characterized with discrete uncertainty sets (i.e., using
load-generation scenarios), the proposed method can be applied
with slight modications. In such a case, the middle maximization in problem (6) simply identies the maximum among individual losses computed by the solutions of the recourse problems for each loading scenario.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper we proposed a method for nding a robust radial
network topology with minimum losses of a distribution system

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10

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

TABLE A
EXAMPLE SYSTEM DATA

considering uncertain load and renewable generation. The uncertainty was modeled by continuous uncertainty sets. To solve the
problem, a decomposition algorithm in a master- slave structure
was developed that partitions the problem into a mixed-integer
linear master problem that derives conguration decisions, and a
mixed-integer linear slave problem that computes the worst case
scenario and the associated worst case performance.
Through numerical studies it was shown that by implementing the robust solution, the distribution system is protected
against higher losses under severe loading conditions while
maintaining the nominal losses close to the losses of the deterministic model. It was shown that reconguration can also
help mitigating the adverse impacts of improperly located DG
units in the distribution system. The performance of the robust
solution against uncertainty realization was assessed through
scenario simulations.
The proposed method can be used to obtain distribution network congurations over weekly or monthly horizons. It is applicable to both originally radial and meshed network topologies. For future research, advanced algorithms can be developed
to solve a robust optimization problem considering AC power
ow models and mixed-integer nonlinear second stage recourse
problems.
APPENDIX
The data of the example system described in Section III is
provided in Table A.
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Hossein Haghighat (M'08) received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran, in 2007. He was a postdoctoral fellow at
the University of Waterloo in 20072009.
His research interests include power system optimization and electricity
market operation.

Bo Zeng (M'11) received the Ph.D. degree in industrial engineering from Purdue
University, West Lafayette, IN, USA, with emphasis on operations research.
He currently is an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA. His research interests are in the
polyhedral study and computational algorithms for stochastic and robust mixed
integer programs, coupled with applications in energy, logistics, and healthcare
systems.
Dr. Zeng is a member of IIE and INFORMS.