Management of three-phase electrical loads using phase balancing optimization technique to reduce voltage imbalance in distribution networks

The rapid growth of technology and uneven demographic population distribution has led to uneven distribution of electrical load demand across the three phases of the electrical distribution network. It has resulted in a steep rise in voltage unbalance scenarios. Such occurrences may have a lasting negative impact on the distribution system in the form of energy loss and extra costs for generation. This paper proposes a Rao optimization-based demand-side management (DSM) model to help the distribution utilities mitigate these issues. The proposed methodology has been designed to effectively distribute the load demand pattern in each node connected across each phase. The proposed DSM methodology has been designed keeping in view to discard any possibility of the need for lateral/load re-phasing. A day ahead load scheduling format has been adopted to design this proposed methodology. It has been implemented on IEEE European 906bus low voltage distribution network. Further, to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, Gauss implicit Z_bus load-flow method is performed upon the test system. The test system considered is IEEE European 906bus low voltage distribution system. The entire methodology is designed in the MATLAB 2018a platform. The implementation of the proposed methodology has reduced the phase voltage unbalance rate in the original test system by ~ 50%. Following the application of the suggested technique, the peak to average ratio in the original test system reduced by 6.22%, 38.7%, 3.22%, and 26.46% in each of the three phases, including the total load consumption of the end users.