Electrical distribution system reconfiguration for power loss reduction by the Salp Swarm algorithm

A novel optimization algorithm called the Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA) has recently been found to be effective for solving optimization problems; however solving optimal system reconfiguration using SSA has not been reported in the literature. Thus, this paper proposes a network reconfiguration of an electrical distribution system based on the SSA for power loss reduction. The 33 and 69 bus distribution systems are focused on for the network reconfiguration. Simulation results obtained by SSA are compared with those of the Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing, which are well-known algorithms. It is found that the performance of an electrical distribution system reconfigured by SSA is reconfigured better than by other methods, in terms of the quality of the solutions and the average elapsed time. Thus SSA becomes a good choice for power loss reduction in an electrical distribution system.