Validity index based improvisation in reproducibility of load profiling outcome

Under competitive market environment, the knowledge of load variation and its behavioural aspect are essential for the survival of electric supply utility. Load profiling is a useful tool to acquire it, and k-means clustering is a crisp, robust and widely proposed method. However, the multiple runs of a k-means algorithm for the same problem do not result in a deterministic outcome because of its dependency on initialisation. This study proposes an improved k-means algorithm to reduce the stochasticity in the outcome. The methodology combines clustering and qualitative validation processes and extracts the best outcome based on several validity indices that take into account cohesion and separation. The external cluster validity indices are innovatively used for comparison of the proposed method with the k-means algorithm. If the same problem is repeatedly executed, the variation in the outcome is lesser as compared to the standard k-means algorithm, thus improving the repeatability and overall quality of the clustering. The 24 real-life data-sets of load patterns of distribution feeders of the Central Indian state discom have been used for the study. The results show that proposed methodology reduces the stochasticity in the outcome significantly

Distributed architecture for self-organising smart distribution systems

Automation of emerging smart distribution grids is required to operate the grid efficiently and swiftly. This study draws a vision on grid automation with agent-based cyber-physical system integration to provide a truly distributed architecture. Furthermore, this study introduces a notion of self-organising smart distribution grid that promotes the grid capability to heal and organise itself in the best-suited topology without the intervention of a central operator. The proposed architecture comprises the system of bus agents (BAs) that emulate the given grid. This emulation is used by BAs to comprehend the grid conditions, switch location and compute their representative bus voltage and partial loss and to estimate the best organisation of the BAs as well as the grid. This study details the behavioural designing of BA that incorporates the functioning above. The proposed architecture also uses an event trigger approach to initiate grid organisation, which is showcased by case studies on IEEE 33 bus system. The results showcase the efficiency of the concept regarding solution accuracy with distributed computations; computational efficiency during contingencies; architecture performance under communication latency; and fault-tolerant characteristics of the proposed architecture