International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE) Vol. 10, No. 4, August 2020, pp. 3375~3383 ISSN: 2088-8708, DOI: 10.11591/ijece.v10i4.pp3375-3383  3375 Journal homepage: http://ijece.iaescore.com/index.php/IJECE Loss allocation in distribution networks with distributed generators undergoing network reconfiguration Ambika Prasad Hota 1 , Sivkumar Mishra 2 1 International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar, India 2 Centre for Advanced Post Graduate Studies, Biju Patnaik University of Technology, India Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received Apr 3, 2019 Revised Jan 13, 2020 Accepted Jan 30, 2020 In this paper, a branch exchange based heuristic network reconfiguration method is proposed for obtaining an optimal network in a deregulated power system. A unique bus identification scheme is employed which makes the load flow and loss calculation faster due to its reduced search time under varying network topological environment. The proposed power loss allocation technique eliminates the effect of cross-term analytically from the loss formulation without any assumptions and approximations. The effectiveness of the proposed reconfiguration and loss allocation methods are investigated by comparing the results obtained by the present approach with that of the existing “Quadratic method” using a 33-bus radial distribution system with/without DGs. Keywords: Distributed generator Loss allocation Network reconfiguration Radial distribution network Copyright © 2020 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science. All rights reserved. Corresponding Author: Ambika Prasad Hota, International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Email: c117001@iiit-bh.ac.in 1. INTRODUCTION In a deregulated environment and with the emergence of smart grids, it is the consumers and distributed generators (DGs) of the distribution system (DS), who will ultimately pay or get paid for their individual share of network utilization. Active power loss in electricity distribution is a prominent component of this network utilization cost. Hence, it is to be recovered from the network users by suitably and fairly allocating it among them. The nonlinear relationship between power loss and injected powers makes loss allocation (LA) process difficult and complicated [1]. Simultaneously, in electric power distribution networks (EPDNs), there is a growing trend in the penetration of DGs because optimal placement of DGs in the EPDNs often lead to substantial reduction in active power loss [2]. Therefore, it is essential to allocate this decrease in power loss among the network participants judiciously as per their actual contribution towards system loss reduction (SLR). Further, LA to the end users get affected due to the changing network topology i.e. network reconfiguration (NR), which is also an established method of loss reduction in EPDNs. Thus, based on one’s changing relative position in the network and the type of load, a consumer/DGO may either have to get rewarded or penalized. Hence, there is a scope to analyze the impact of NR on active power loss allocation in modern distribution networks, particularly, when very little work has been reported where both NR and LA are considered together. Literature survey reveals that most of the LA methods were initially proposed for transmission systems [3], and later, LA methods exclusively meant for distribution systems are reported in Refs [4-11]. With the penetration of DGs, the LA methods are modified and proposed accordingly. A power summation based LA algorithm is developed in [5] where the cross-term of power loss equation is bifurcated among the responsible nodes using a quadratic scheme. This technique is further extended for energy calculation in Ref. [6] through a statistical analysis of daily load and generation curves of DGs. In [7], a three stepped LA