A Scalable Distributed Algorithm for Optimizing Distribution Power-Grids

Jorge E. Pezoa , Luis Garca-Santander and Angely A. C rcamo-Gallardo a

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA; E-Mail: jpezoa@ece.unm.edu. Department of Electrical Engineering, Universidad de Concepci n, Concepci n, Chile; E-Mail: luigarci@udec.cl. o o Department of Economics, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA; E-Mail: acarcamo@unm.edu.

AbstractUtilities are interested in obtaining optimal operational topologies for their distribution power-grids so that they can efciently employ grid resources, and simultaneously, increase their prots while providing a specied quality-ofservice (QoS) to their customers. This paper presents a distributed and scalable algorithm for yielding an optimal powergrid topology that minimizes the QoS metric called energy-notsupplied (ENS) by the distribution grid. The ENS is minimized by constructing both local, independent minimum weight spanning trees (MWSTs) and a global yet unique MWST for the entire grid. At each step of the distributed algorithm, agents exchange information about their local MWSTs in order to coordinately construct the global MWST. In addition, the distributed algorithm exploits heuristics to supply extra decision criteria to the agents constructing the MWST of the power grid. Index TermsReliability, optimization, reconguration, energy-not-supplied, distribution grids, greedy algorithms.

I. I NTRODUCTION Electrical utilities must deliver electrical energy to their customers while providing some prescribed quality-of-service (QoS). It is well-known that QoS in distribution power-grids is related to parameters such as load connectivity, line-current or line-voltage compliance, and service availability among others. Load connectivity refers to the duty of maintaining all the customers connected to the power grid. The linecurrent (respectively, line-voltage) compliance states that line currents (respectively, line-voltages) must remain bounded below (respectively, within) hard limits to avoid exceeding line-current capacities (respectively, over- and under-voltages). Finally, the service availability refers to the fraction of time where power supply is uninterrupted. This metric must be kept as high as possible because customers demand a continuous supply of electrical energy, and during outages, utilities reduce their revenues, increase their economic losses, for instance due to reparation and restoration costs, and may even incur in expensive nes from regulatory commissions. A QoS metric relevant to utilities and their customers is the energy-not-supplied (ENS). The ENS is metric dened in terms of both the average outage periods and customers demanded-power. From an economic point of view the ENS is also appealing to utilities because they can assess revenue deprivations in a straightforward manner. The ENS strongly depends on the topology of the power-distribution system; therefore, grid operators face the problem of nding a valid

topology that minimizes the ENS by power-grid during a certain operating regime. Such problem is termed in the literature as the reconguration of a power-grid. This problem is challenging because a valid topology must be radial, maintain all the customers connected to the grid and satisfy voltage and current ow constraints. Due to its combinatorial nature, this optimization problem is known to be NP-hard [1], [2]. Moreover, the optimization problem has also a large-scale due to distribution power-grids typically connect hundreds or thousands of loads. Besides, an extra challenge in the problem is the fact that a one-time optimization is not an effective solution; customers power-demand changes over time, and consequently, an operating topology obtained for a certain regime may no longer be optimal under new operating conditions. The goal of this paper is to assess and minimize the ENS by a given power-grid. To this end, we present here a distributed algorithm for yielding a power-grid topology that minimizes the ENS, which is based upon our earlier graph-theoretical model for medium-voltage power-grids [3], [4]. The ENS is minimized by distributedly constructing both local, independent minimum weight spanning trees (MWSTs), one per each power source in the grid, and a global yet unique MWST for the entire grid. At each step of the distributed algorithm, agents located at the power sources exchange information about their locally constructed MWSTs. Such information is used by the agents to coordinately construct a unique MWST for the entire distribution power-grid. Unlike in [3], current ow constraints have been included in the optimization problem, and also, heuristics have been exploited by the distributed algorithm in order to supply extra criteria to agents during the construction of the MWSTs. To assess the performance of the distributed algorithm, we evaluate in these work some practical small- and large-scale power-grids. The performance metrics considered are ENS, the maximum and minimum values for the linecurrents and the average number of iterations of the algorithm. The reminder of this paper is organized as follows. Following the background of related work presented in Section II, we introduce in Section III both our prior model for the ENS of a power-grid and the distributed algorithm developed here for yielding topologies with minimal ENS. In addition, in the same section the algorithmic complexity as well as the heuristics exploited by the proposed distributed algorithm are discussed.

In Section IV we have evaluated the distributed algorithm by optimizing small-scale grids as well as a large-scale distribution network. Our conclusions are given in Section V. II. R ELATED W ORK The problem of optimally reconguring a power grid has been extensively studied in the literature. Several optimization criteria have been proposed as metrics for reconguring a power grid. Namely, the minimization of resistive losses, the minimization of the restoration time after a failure, the minimization of the ENS, and multi-objective approaches are some of the metrics regarded in the literature. Reconguring a power grid is an NP-hard constrained optimization problem that, in general, comprises a large number of loads and a non-linear mixed-integer optimization function. Constraints associated with the problem are: yielding a radial topology, keeping voltage and current magnitudes bounded, and maintaining all the loads connected [1], [2], [5]. Most of the solutions presented to date exploit some kind of heuristics, thereby efcient search algorithms have been derived. The rst work on power-grid reconguration was presented by Merlin and Back [6]. This work started the rst line of research on power-grid reconguration: minimization of electrical losses. A large number of different solutions have been proposed such as algorithms that iteratively open and close reconguration switches in the grid until a radial topology with minimal losses is achieved [7], heuristic algorithms based on the concept of optimum power-ow pattern [8], all sorts of mathematical programming [1], dynamic programming [9] and genetic algorithms [10]. A different motivation generated a second line of research: reconguration for minimizing the time to restore the electric supply after a failure. Solutions for this problem are based on fuzzy neural networks [11], heuristic fuzzy algorithms [12] and mathematical programming. Yet a third line of research is the reconguration of power grids for minimizing the ENS. Vega et al. investigates the reliability of a distribution grid by means of the ENS, [13], and in [14] Popovics group introduced a new algorithm to minimize the average ENS based on fuzzy logic and probability theory. In [3] a set of algorithms based on graph theory and graph compression were proposed. In addition, several works have been proposed not only to minimize the ENS of a network but also to optimally locate reconguration switches by means of minimizing the ENS [15]. Other researchers have focused on multi-objective reconguration problems. Popovic and Ciric proposed in [2] the optimization of a hierarchical multi-objective cost function, where minimal losses and ENS are considered in the function. In [16] the authors formulated a cost function combining the cost of ENS, the resistive losses as well as the maintenance and investment costs. Also, some approaches for minimizing electrical losses while achieving load balancing have also been proposed [17]. Recently, a semi-distributed multi-agent approach was used to solve the class of the reconguration problems [18]. Also,

Augugliaro et al. proposed in [19] a hierarchical, semidistributed solution for minimizing electrical losses via reconguration of the grid. To date, Huan et al. appear as the rst group of researchers proposing a completely decentralized solution for reconguring a power grid [20]. The approach uses multi-agents and aims to control the reconguration process in a decentralized manner, but the optimization stage is not considered as part of the solution. III. T HEORY A. Power Grid Modeling Here the notation used in [3] has been adopted and slight modications have been made in order to model power grids with more than one power source. For completeness, necessary denitions are reproduced here. A power grid with arbitrary topology can be modeled by the graph G = (V, E), where V is the set of loads (or nodes) in the grid and E is the set transmission lines (edges) connecting the loads. In this paper, the set of nodes is partitioned into two sets; namely, the set of power sources, VF , and the set of load, VL , with V = VF VL , NF = |VF | and NL = |VL |, where |A| is the cardinality of the set A. In general, the topology of a power grid is a mesh; however, the power grid must operate using a radial topology. So, the tree T = (V, E ) induced by the graph G, with E E, will be used to denote a valid reconguration topology. Also, it is assumed that the following system parameters are known: (i) the average active power, Pi , consumed by the ith load in the grid; (ii) the failure rate of the transmission line connecting the nodes i and j, denoted by i,j ; and (iii) the average restoration and reparation times, denoted by ti,j and ti,j , respectively, taken by the grid to recover from a failure at the line connecting loads i and j. The ENS is a metric that assesses the average amount of electrical energy not delivered to the customers due to the unavailability associated to the grid topology. Following [3], the ENS at ith the node is dened as EN Si Pi Uj,i + Uj,i ,
i,jV, j=i

(1)

where Uj,i (correspondingly, Uj,i ) is the service unavailability related to the reparation (correspondingly, restoration) time of all the lines connecting the node i. The service-reparation unavailability and the service-restoration unavailability are dened as Uj,i = j,i tj,i and Uj,i = j,i tj,i , respectively1 . The ENS of the entire grid is calculated as the aggregate of all loads, with the exception of the power sources. That is EN S =
iVL

EN Si .

(2)

Carcamo-Gallardo et al. introduced the following recursive

1 In [3] the unavailable times are dened using an extra parameter, namely, the length of each line that is denoted as dj,i . For simplicity, this parameter has been omitted here making the units of the availability per unit length.

formulation for the ENS EN Si (T

k+1

) = Pi

Ue +
k+1,n eTV ,i j F

Ue
k+1,n e(TV ,i j )c F

(3)

EN S(T k+1 ; k) = EN S(T k ; k 1) + EN Si (T k+1 ) + U,i Pv ,

F)

(4)

v(T VF ,nj \V

where i is the new load added to the MWST using the line {{, i}}, T k+1 = T k {{, i}} is the MWST constructed k+1,n at the kth iteration of the algorithm, TVF ,i j denotes the direct path from the power source to the ith load belonging k+1,n to the nj th subtree of T k+1 , (TVF ,i j )c is a disconnected tree containing all those load whose ENS is affected by the addition of the node i to the MWST, EN Si (T k+1 ) is the ENS of the ith load, and EN S(T k+1 ; k) is the ENS of the power grid, obtained after k iterations, when the tree T k+1 models the operational topology of grid. For examples on how the notation and calculations works, the reader is referred to [3]. The optimal reconguration of a power grid is the process of nding the best radial topology for the grid spanning all the loads. In [3] it was shown that this problem is equivalent to the problem of nding a MWST for the graph G = (V, E). Thus, the following constrained optimization problem can be formulated (T ) = (V , E ) = argmin EN S(T N ; N 1),
T F (V,E)

(5)

subject to the constraints: (i) V = V the spanning condition, (ii) ||E || = N 1 the tree condition. (The symbol F(V, E) represents the class of all trees with N vertices that can be obtained from G.) The greedy reconguration algorithm (GRA) proposed in [3] to nd a MWST consists of two stages. The rst stage is uses Prims algorithm to construct an initial MWST performing a greedy search. That is, at each iteration of the algorithm, the load adding the least ENS to the grid is included in the MWST. In order to compensate for the greedy search and the topology dependence of the ENS, at the second stage those topologies randomly discarded during the iterations of Prim algorithm are veried. In addition, to reduce the dimension of the search problem and speed-up the computations, load clustering is performed in the so-called fast greedy reconguration algorithm (FGRA). The remaining of this section presents the decentralized version of the GRA algorithms and current ow constraints introduced to the optimization problem (5). B. Distributed Algorithm for Optimizing Grid Topologies 1) Algorithm: The algorithm proposed here for optimizing grid topologies exploits two facts. The rst one is that the GRA algorithm presented in [3] yields topologies with minimal ENS for power grids with a single power source. The second fact is that every current circuit generated at a power source is independent of the other current circuits generated at the same or at a different power source. This independence is in terms of both: electrical current at and reliability of the circuits.

As a consequence, not only different electrical circuits are independent, but also the unavailability of the lines and circuits belonging to different power sources. Consequently, we can locate distributed agents at every power source of the grid, where each one of these agents executes its own independent copy of the GRA algorithm. If the agents are able to coordinate the outputs of their copies, a MWST for the entire grid can be constructed in a distributed fashion. It must be noted that in order to achieve this goal, it is mandatory to supply the agents with a reliable communication channel and a decision policy that guarantees that all the agents will construct exactly the same MWST. The basic procedure of the distributed algorithm to construct MWSTs is as follows. The jth agent, which is located at the jth power source in the grid, executes the GRA algorithm. After the execution of the GRA algorithm the load ij , say, is the candidate local load proposed by the jth agent to be included in both the local and the global MWST. Assume that the load ij uses the line {{j , ij }} and let T k+1 (j) = T k+1 (j) {{j , ij }} denote the tree constructed by the jth agent at the kth iteration of the distributed algorithm. Let also EN Sij (T k+1 (j)) denote the ENS of the ij th load, which is connected to the jth power source through the tree T k+1 (j), and let EN S(T k+1 (j); k) denote the ENS of the tree T k+1 (j) generated from the jth power source in the grid. Next, the jth agent creates an information packet containing the quantities ij , T k+1 (j) and EN S(T k+1 (j); k) and broadcast it to the remaining agents of the grid. Simultaneously, each agent receives the information packets broadcasted by the other agents. After this exchange of information, each distributed agent can independently select (among the NF local candidates) the optimal load, i (k), that adds the least ENS to the global MWST. In order to guarantee that all the distributed agents will select the same load at each iteration on the algorithm without relying on extra information exchange, here it is assumed that they employ the following additional selection criteria in situations where more than one candidate load yield a topology with the same minimal ENS. First, agents will include in the MWST the load adding the least amount of unavailability to the grid. If still more than one node introduce the same ENS and unavailability, the node with the smallest identication number will be included in the MWST. It must be remarked that, unlike the distributed algorithm proposed here, the GRA algorithm allows each agent to randomly select their local candidate load when more than one local load introduces the same ENS to the MWST. In order to compensate for the effect of such random discard of local candidate loads, it is assumed here that the distributed algorithm must be executed at most times by the agents, where is a user-dened parameter. Algorithm 1 shows a pseudo code for the distributed algorithm proposed here. Finally, it must be commented that the FGRA algorithm can be executed, instead of GRA, without altering the distributed approach proposed here. 2) Algorithm complexity: Since the algorithm proposed here is a slightly modied distributed version of Prims al-

Algorithm 1 Distributed GRA algorithm for reconguring power grids

Require: G = (V, E), V = VF VL , Ensure: T = (V , E ) Set m = 1 and EN Smin = while m do 0 Initially, T 0 (j) = (Vj0 , Ej ) = (j, ) with j VF while jVF |Vjk | < N do for j VF do {This is executed in parallel} Execute GRA algorithm and select ij , T k+1 (j) and EN S(T k+1 (j); k) Send ij , T k+1 (j) and EN S(T k+1 (j); k) to all the other power sources Wait for the NF 1 messages to arrive Select i (k) and T k+1, from T k+1, = argminT k+1 (j) EN S(T k+1 (j); k) Update k, T k+1 (j) and EN S(T k+1 (j); k) end for end while if EN Smin < EN S(T NL +1 ; NL ) then EN Smin = EN S(T NL +1 ; NL ) and T NL +1, = T NL +1 end if end while Announce T NL +1, as T = (V , E )

gorithm, it is easy to realize that after executing NL iterations all the loads will be are connected to the global MWST. In addition, the total number of messages exchanged by the distributed agents is NL (NF 1). From this, the complexity of the distributed algorithm is bilinear in the number of loads and power sources, O NL (NF 1) . Unfortunately, since the number of loads in a grid is typically large, so it is the number of messages exchanged by the agents. A hierarchical approach could be used to reduce the number of messages, however large savings in the data exchange cannot be expected due to typically NL NF , that is, the number of loads is much larger than the number of power sources. Finally, one might attempt to generate the independent MWSTs and coordinate their constructions every K > 1 iterations, say. This would reduce the amount of messages exchanged by the agents, but introduces an extra difculty: the global topology may not result in a tree. As a future work, some trade off between independence in computations and coordination could be established. 3) Heuristics: In power grids the so-called distribution loads are nodes that do not consume power since their function is delivery the power to the nal loads. As a consequence, distribution loads do not increment the ENS of the topology. This means that such loads are added at rst to the MWST under construction when the GRA or the distributed GRA algorithms are employed to create the local MWST. It must be noted, nonetheless, that such loads do enlarge the unavailability associated with the topology, because their reliability parameters are positive. From this, it makes sense to include a second criteria to the algorithms for selecting which distribution node should be added to the local MWST. One criterion is to add the distribution node that introduces the least amount of unavailability to the grid. Such criterion can be included in the algorithm as is, or by using the following approximation: to

assume that distribution loads consume some > 0 power. By assuming that distribution loads consume an amount of power, we can improve the decisions taken by the GRA algorithm due to it selects randomly between all those loads whose ENS is equal to zero [3]. Also, it must be commented that introducing this heuristics help the distributed algorithm, as well as its original decentralized version, to reduce the number of random discard during the selection of the candidate nodes. 4) Current ow constraints: Current ow constraints specify the maximum amount of electrical current allowed to ow at each line of the power grid. Adding such constraints to the optimization problem (5) is trivial; however, performing the computations required to obtain the amount of current is a hard, time-consuming task. Line currents have to be determined by solving a load ow computation, which numerically nds all the current and voltage magnitudes as well as phase angles at the lines and loads. The problem is hard because it involves solving a system of N non-linear complex equations. Popular methods for computing load ows are Jacobi, Gauss-Seidel and Newton-Raphson [21]. In order to avoid this difculty, and at the same time speed-up the calculations of the load ow, the so-called constant demanded power approximation was employed. In this approximation, lines are assumed to be ideal, while loads power consumption is supposed to be a constant amount of real power. With this, once the power demanded by each load is known, line currents at each load can be easily computed, and by using superposition, the total current at each line can be calculated by aggregating all the ows in a line. Current ow calculations were added to the distributed algorithm. Before evaluating the ENS of a candidate load, line currents of the entire circuit connecting the candidate load are calculated, and the maximum ow capacity of the lines is veried. If the maximum values for line currents are not exceeded, the ENS of the proposed topology is calculated, otherwise the node is not considered as candidate. IV. R ESULTS The decentralized reconguration algorithm proposed here was implemented in Matlab, and the topologies of two actual power grids currently operating in the Chilean Interconnected Electrical System have been optimized. The rst power-grid under study is the small-scale 41-load system depicted in Figure 1. The system parameters of the grid can be found in [3]. The second grid has a large-scale since is composed of 920 nodes and 957 distribution lines. Unlike in [3], current ow constraints were also included in the optimization problem. For implementation purposes, the constraints were not considered hard. That is, when current ow constraints are too restrictive, the algorithm generates anyway a radial topology with minimal ENS and warns, however, the user about the excessive current in the lines. For the power grid depicted in Fig. 1, the best topology obtained corresponds to opening lines 3940, 3140 and 20 41. Such topology has a ENS of 11041 KWh/yr, and a

topologies with larger ENS.

Table I

RANK OF RADIAL TOPOLOGIES FOR THE POWER GRID IN AND THEIR CORRESPONDING ENS

F IG . 1

Small-scale power-grid to be recongured for minimizing the ENS. The power grid comprises two sub-grids: the left-hand side system and the right-hand side system, whose power sources are nodes 28 and 38, respectively. (Source [3].)
Figure 1.

EN S, KWh/yr 11041 11266 11296 11390 11485 11626 12065 13313 13345 13349 15160

[Imin , Imax ], A [75,84] [75,84] [57,99] [59,99] [62,101] [57,109] [57,118] [39,121] [59,133] [37,138] [39,153]

Lines opened 39-40, 31-40, 20-41 39-40, 41-40, 20-41 19-20, 22-24, 33-34 20-41, 33-34, 31-40 20-41, 22-24, 34-39 19-20, 31-40, 39-34 19-20, 31-40, 22-24 32-33, 22-24, 41-40 33-34, 30-31, 22-24 18-19, 22-24, 31-40 33-34, 29-30, 22-24

maximum line current is 84 A. These values were obtained when a maximal line current of 200 A was set as an upper bound for the line currents, and the parameter was set to 20 executions of the algorithm. The mean and standard deviation of the ENS are 12303 and 114.28 KWh/yr, respectively. Remarkably, when tighter current constraints are specied, the distributed algorithm yields the same result for the minimal ENS, but the mean and standard deviation of the ENS are reduced. In particular, when a maximal line current of 95 A is employed, the distributed algorithm nds a minimal ENS of 11041 KWh/yr with mean and standard deviation 11351 and 200 KWh/yr, respectively. This result agrees with the fact that small current ows are obtained for short-length current circuits. The latter implies that current circuits of the optimal topology will contain a small number of loads and lines, and as a consequence, these circuits exhibit a reduced unavailability and ENS as compared to other topologies with larger ENS. The power-consumption approximation has been coded as an optional feature for the distributed GRA algorithm. In evaluations an value equal to 0.1% of the minimal active power consumed by the nodes has been used. (The minimal active power is 150 KW according to Table II in [3].) The approximation was tested in the distributed algorithm, and the minimal ENS found was 11041 KWh/yr, respectively. It must be noted that only two values minimal values for the ENS were found when the approximation was used, namely, the ENS was either 11041 or 11086 KWh/yr. This result is better than the result obtained by the (centralized) FGRA algorithm and has a extremely reduced standard deviation as compared to the case of not using the approximation. This type of behavior is expected because by assuming that distribution loads consume some power yields a mechanism to distinguish between topologies with the same ENS but different reliability. As a consequence, the number of random discards of candidate loads during the decision process is reduced. It must be remarked that the value must be carefully selected. Evaluations have shown that small values yield an accurate calculation for the ENS, at expense of generating

In Table I we have ranked the top ten topologies with minimal ENS and their corresponding extreme line currents. The goal of creating such rank-table is twofold: (i) grid operators employ such table to select on-line an appropriate topology for the grid, without solving the optimization problem again; and (ii) such rank can help power-grid designers to decide where to install topology-reconguration switches. In our evaluations we have assumed again that distribution loads consume = 0.1% of the minimal power demanded by the loads. Interestingly, our results have shown that topologies having the least ENS exhibit simultaneously more balanced line currents and a balanced number of nodes connected to each circuit generated from the power sources. It must be noted that the minimal ENS achieved by our distributed algorithm is almost the same as the ENS achieved by the GRA algorithm, and errors introduced by the approximation are below 1%. However, the computing-time of the distributed algorithm is reduced in about 50 to 70% as compared to the computingtime of the GRA algorithm. The large-scale power grid, which consists of 957 distribution lines, 916 loads and 4 power sources, was also optimized using the decentralized algorithm. The results obtained for the optimization are the same as in [3], namely, a minimal ENS of 1434.04 [GW h/yr] was found for such grid. When the power approximation is enabled in the algorithm, results of the distributed GRA are approximately 3 to 5% higher that the ones found using the without enabling the heuristics feature. This difference is attributed to the fact that the decentralized GRA has a review algorithm, which is provided by executions of the algorithm, that checks more topologies than in the case of the same algorithm but using a approximation for the power consumption of the zero active-power loads. A. Speeding-up the Centralized GRA and FGRA Algorithms We have tested also if the heuristics proposed in this paper provide some computational advantage to the centralized GRA and FGRA algorithms in [3]. To this end, we have enhanced such algorithms by including the power-consumption approximation for the distribution nodes. Results obtained for the optimization of the small-scale grid shown in Fig. 1 are listed in Table II. As in the case of the distributed algorithm, was

Table II

R ESULTS OF THE OPTIMIZATION PROCESS FOR THE POWER GRID IN F IG . 1

Original GRA and FGRA algorithms Metric Avg. number iterations Avg. computing time [s] Avg. number topologies veried Avg. EN S [KWh/yr] EN S [KWh/yr] Left-hand side system GRA FGRA 179 0.263 12 5956 5956 10 0.015 1 5956 5956 Right-hand side system GRA FGRA 154 0.224 9 5310 5310 10 0.013 4 5310 5310 Complete system GRA FGRA 1840 4.921 64 12330 11041 79 0.209 2 11390 11390

GRA and FGRA algorithms with Metric Avg. number iterations Avg. computing time [s] Avg. number topologies veried Avg. EN S [KWh/yr] EN S [KWh/yr]

= 0.1% power-consumption approximation Right-hand side system GRA FGRA 89 0.133 4 5310.25 5310.25 10 0.013 4 5310.25 5310.25 Complete system GRA FGRA 436 1.121 12 11064 11041 79 0.206 2 11390 11390

Left-hand side system GRA FGRA 42 0.060 1 5956.54 5956.54 10 0.015 1 5956.54 5956.54

selected to be 10% of the minimal active power consumed by the loads. Remarkably, by including the power-consumption approximation in the GRA algorithm in [3], the computing time is signicantly reduced (between 50 and 70%), while achieving the optimal value for the ENS with some negligible error. Additionally, the large-scale power grid has also been optimized using the enhanced versions of GRA and FGRA algorithms. C rcamo-Gallardo et al. reported that the GRA a algorithm takes approximately 125 minutes to solve the optimization problem. (Optimizing the large-scale grid takes, on average, 75 minutes on the computer employed for obtaining the results presented here.) The resulting optimal topology has an ENS of 1434.04 GWh/yr. The GRA algorithm executes an average of 151302 iterations. By using an powerconsumption approximation equal to 0.1% of the minimal active power of the loads, the algorithm found a minimal ENS of 1434.08 GWh/yr after executing, on average, 4636 iterations of the algorithm, which take an average time of 2.3 minutes! The excessively long computing time taken by the GRA algorithm is attributed to the fact that a large number of topologies must be reviewed by the second stage of algorithm. This is because distribution nodes are the best candidate loads to add to the tree, and since just one load must be added to the tree at each iteration, the remaining candidate loads must be discarded and saved for their future review. However, when the power-consumption approximation is used, the likelihood of generating candidate topologies with equal ENS is reduced and so it is the number of topologies to review. Clearly, the value used in the approximation must affect the minimal ENS achieved by the algorithm and the number of iterations executed. Evaluations have been performed employing values of: 1%, 0.1%, 0.01% and 1012 %. The ENS of the grid computed with these values is 1434.46, 1434.08, 1434.05, and 1434.04 GWh/yr, respectively. In addition, the

average number of iterations executed was 916, 4636, 9065, and 12065, respectively. As expected, using small enough values for yields an accurate calculation for the ENS, at expense of generating more alternative topologies to review. V. C ONCLUSIONS Power grid reconguration is a hard, practical and very challenging optimization problem. Power grid reconguration is a problem of technical and economical interest to electrical utilities and grid operators. It is well-known that the problem cannot be solved optimally when the scale grid is large. As a consequence several suboptimal solutions have been proposed in the literature, being heuristic approaches the most used and those offering better results. In particular, the heuristic approximation presented here exploits the denition of the ENS to reduce the number candidate loads achieving the same ENS. This results in a more accurate selection of the candidate load and in a reduction in the computing time taken by the centralized algorithms GRA and FGRA, which backtrack discarded topologies. In spite of the fact that a power grid offers naturally a distributed environment, there is a lack of decentralized solutions for the reconguration problem. Here, a distributed algorithm for reconguring power grids have been proposed. The algorithm create independent radial topologies at each power source in the grid, and coordinately creates a MWST that yields a topology with minimal ENS. Results have shown that the algorithm can effectively optimal topologies in short time. The main drawback of the algorithm proposed here is the amount of messages that power sources have to exchange to coordinate the construction of the MWST. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported by the Direcci n de Investigaci n, o o Universidad de Concepci n, Chile award DIUC 207.092.048o 1.0.

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