Paper Title: A comparative study of Pareto optimal approaches for distribution system reconfiguration Authors: Tomoiaga, B.; Micu, D.D. Conference Paper: in Power Engineering Conference (UPEC), 2014 49th International Universities, pp.1-6, 2-5 Sept. 2014 DOI: 10.1109/UPEC.2014.6934784 URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6934784&isnumber=6934581 [Download PDF file for free] Abstract: Reconfiguration of a power distribution system consists in changing the functional links among its elements and represents one of the most important actions for the improvement of system performance in operation. In the last few years, some authors have proposed approaches based on Pareto optimality for problem formulation of reconfiguration, with active power losses and reliability indices as objectives. The study highlights the optimization importance of reliability indices which refer to the interruption frequency, especially because, in the context of smart grids, the fastness of the reconfiguration method contributes, by itself, to reduce the duration of interruptions. There is no unique recognition concerning which approach is the most suitable to be used in order to solve the reconfiguration as a Pareto-optimal problem. The most important aspect is the way in which the specific information of the problem field is modelled in the implementation. Also, the dimension of a Pareto-front can vary widely from a test system to another. Keywords: Pareto optimisation; genetic algorithms; power distribution reliability; smart power grids; Pareto optimal approaches; active power losses; power distribution system reconfiguration; reliability index optimization; smart grids; Computers; Decision support systems; Indexes; Linear programming; Maintenance engineering; Power systems; Reliability; Pareto optimality; genetic algorithm; multi-objective optimization; power distribution system; reconfiguration