A Joint Planning Method for Substations and Lines in Distribution Systems Based on the Parallel Bird Swarm Algorithm.

Reasonable distribution network planning schemes can not only improve the power quality and power supply capacity of the power system, but also increase the economic benefits and welfare of the whole society. In this work, a bi-level optimization model is proposed for the joint planning of substations and lines in looped urban distribution systems. The upper-level model aims to address the substation locating and sizing problem, whereas the lower-level model the network planning problem. Both the substations directly supplying power to a load and the contralateral substations that act as backup power source to the load are considered in the bi-level model. In order to solve the bi-level planning model which is mathematically mixed integer programing and with plenty of continuous and discrete variables, the bird swarm algorithm is improved and applied based on the idea of parallel computing of big data theory. Simulations on actual planning problems are employed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed bi-level distribution network planning model and the parallel bird swarm algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]