Optimization of electric distribution network configuration for power loss reduction based on enhanced binary cuckoo search algorithm

This paper presents a new network reconfiguration (NR) method using enhanced binary cuckoo search algorithm (EBCSA) to reduce power loss in the distribution system. Enhanced binary cuckoo search algorithm (EBCSA) is developed by transferring the continuous cuckoo search algorithm (CSA) to the binary domain and adding a new local search mechanism. Calculation results on different test systems demonstrate that EBCSA has capability for searching the optimal network configuration with greater success rate, better optimal solution quality and smaller number of average convergence iterations than those of binary CSA, binary coyote optimization algorithm, binary genetic algorithm and binary particle swarm optimization. Furthermore, the effect of the transfer function transferring from continuous domain to binary domain and the value of the parameters of EBCSA for the NR problem are also evaluated to choose the suitable values. The results show that EBCSA is a tool worth considering for the NR problem.