Impact of Ambient Temperature Increase on Distribution Network Load and Configuration

One of the efficient ways to reduce power losses on distribution systems is through the use of network reconfiguration. Distribution networks loss minimization is very vital in power systems due to the fact it accounts for the greater power of losses on the power systems, even more than transmission losses. This loss results in expensive network operation and voltage profile distortion. In conventional network reconfiguration, the distribution network topology is efficiently modified to obtain minimum power losses in accordance with the electric energy demand by end-users. Varying load types connected to a distribution network results in different power losses as compared to having similar load types. Notwithstanding, the majority of models proposed for distribution reconfiguration problems did not consider consumer diversity. The few studies that took into consideration load type in their proposed reconfiguration strategies did not consider impact of environmental temperature increase on power consumption and network topology. Therefore, the current paper introduces an efficient model for the reconfiguration of distribution systems considering dependency of various load types on temperature changes. The results show that environment temperature variations significantly affect the configuration of distribution systems through load and power loss changes.