Optimal electric distribution network configuration using adaptive sunflower optimization

Network reconfiguration (NR) is a powerful approach for power loss reduction in the distribution system. This paper presents a method of network reconfiguration using adaptive sunflower optimization (ASFO) to minimize power loss of the distribution system. ASFO is developed based on the original sunflower optimization (SFO) that is inspired from moving of sunflower to the sun. In ASFO, the mechanisms including pollination, survival and mortality mechanisms have been adjusted compared to the original SFO to fit with the network reconfiguration problem. The numerical results on the 14-node and 33-node systems have shown that ASFO outperforms to SFO for finding the optimal network configuration with greater success rate and better obtained solution quality. The comparison results with other previous approaches also indicate that ASFO has better performance than other methods in term of optimal network configuration. Thus, ASFO is a powerful method for the NR.