1488 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 23, NO.

3, AUGUST 2008

An Expert System for Three-Phase Balancing

of Distribution Feeders
Chia-Hung Lin, Member, IEEE, Chao-Shun Chen, Member, IEEE, Hui-Jen Chuang, Member, IEEE,
Ming-Yang Huang, and Chia-Wen Huang

Abstract—In this paper, an expert system is designed to derive

the rephasing strategy of laterals and distribution transformers
to enhance three-phase balancing of distribution systems. The
heuristic rules adopted by distribution engineers are incorporated
in the knowledge base of the expert system in the problem-solving
process. The neutral current reduction algorithm is developed
to support the inference engine to derive the rephasing strategy
to reduce the neutral current of distribution feeder so that the
tripping of over-current relay can be prevented and the customer
service interruption cost and labor cost to execute the rephasing
strategy can be justified by the power loss reduction obtained.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed expert system
to enhance three-phase balance, a practical distribution feeder
in Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) is selected for computer
simulation. By minimizing the objective function subjected to
the rephasing rules, the rephasing strategy has been derived to
identify the laterals and distribution transformers for phasing
adjustment. After executing the proposed rephasing strategy by
Taipower engineers, the phase currents and neutral current of
test feeder has been collected by the SCADA system to verify the
reduction of neutral current. The power loss reduction obtained
by three-phase balancing has been solved by three-phase load
flow analysis, which is then used to justify the customer service
interruption cost and labor cost for rephasing of test feeder.
Index Terms—Customer information system, expert system,
outage management system.
I. INTRODUCTION
W ITH the dramatic growth in the number and size of
single-phase residential and commercial customers
served in the Taipower distribution system, the unbalance in
the phase currents leads to excessive neutral currents that may
cause tripping of distribution feeders. Besides, the execution of
non-interruptible load transfer between feeders for scheduled
outage and service restoration after fault contingency may
introduce further tripping of supporting feeders due to the
increase of neutral current after load transfer. However, it is
Manuscript received October 29, 2007; revised April 19, 2008. Paper no.
TPWRS-00773-2007.
C. H. Lin is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Kaoh-
siung University of Applied Sciences, Kaohsiung 807, Taiwan, R.O.C. (e-mail:
chlin@mail.ee.kuas.edu.tw).
C. S. Chen is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, I-Shou Univer-
sity, Ta-Hsu Hsiang, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan, R.O.C.
H. J. Chuang is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Kao Yuan
University, Lu Chu, Taiwan, R.O.C.
M. Y. Huang is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Sun
Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C.
C. W. Huang is with the Power Research Institute, Taiwan Power Company,
Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2008.926472
0885-8950/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
Fig. 1. Connectivity of an OYD transformer to serve 1- and 3- loads.
very labor intensive and time-consuming for distribution engi-
neers to improve three-phase balance of distribution feeders by
the conventional practice. Taipower has performed the phase
swapping of distribution laterals and transformers to improve
phase loading balance by trial and error methods.
To serve the low voltage residential and commercial cus-
tomers as well as the high voltage commercial and industrial
customers, many 1- distribution transformers have been used
in Taipower distribution system. Due to the variation of cus-
tomer load behaviors, it is difficult to maintain the three-phase
balance of distribution feeders for all time periods. Furthermore,
the open-wye, open-delta (OYD) transformers with connec-
tivity as shown in Fig. 1 have been widely applied to serve both
1- and 3- loads simultaneously. It is noted that, only two
units of 1- transformers with different capacities are used and
supplied by two phases of the high voltage primary feeder. The
transformer with larger capacity serves both 1- and 3- loads
while the smaller one serves 3- loads only. Although one unit
of 1- transformer has been saved, the three-phase unbalance
will be deteriorated due to the unsymmetrical configuration of
OYD transformer.
According to the operation and computer simulation of dis-
tribution feeders in Taipower, the severe three-phase unbalance
of distribution system has caused the increase of power loss, in-
duced communication interference, and customer service inter-
ruption due to unexpected tripping of low energy over current
relay (LCO) [1].
To solve the three-phase unbalance of distribution system,
the authors in [2] have formulated the phase balancing problem
as a linear objective function with mixed-integer programming.
However, the decision-making criteria for rephasing strategies
of distribution systems may not be represented as a linear
function very well. For instance, the system loss minimization
problem is itself a nonlinear integer objective function and
will be very difficult to be solved analytically. The simulated
annealing (SA) method has been applied to solve the phase
swapping problem in [3] as a large-scale nonlinear integer
programming problems. In [4], Chen et al. presented a genetic
LIN et al.: EXPERT SYSTEM FOR THREE-PHASE BALANCING OF DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS 1489

algorithm to optimize the phase arrangement of distribution

transformers connected to the primary feeder. However, these
approaches do not incorporate the heuristic rules of system
planning in the problem formulation. Besides, the labor cost and
the customer service interruption cost caused by the scheduled
power outages for the execution of rephasing strategy have not
been considered according to the number of customers affected,
the amount of loading disconnected and the outage duration
time. To justify the cost effectiveness of rephasing strategies,
the objective function of rephasing strategy for distribution
systems should be derived in a more practical way by including
all of the related cost and the reduction of neutral current and
system power loss. Fig. 2. Three-phase currents and neutral current of Feeder BD31 (summer).
In this paper, a knowledge-based expert system [5], [6] is
developed to derive the rephasing strategies for distribution
feeders to enhance the three-phase balancing by reducing the
magnitude of neutral current. It is designed by including the
heuristic rules used by Taipower engineers to execute the
feeder rephasing work. With the heuristic rules imbedded in
the knowledge base of expert system, an inference engine is es-
tablished to derive an optimal rephasing strategy of laterals and
distribution transformers using the system data and heuristic
rules as the basis of reasoning. To achieve the reduction of
neutral current and distribution system power loss, a two-phase
rephasing algorithm is also developed to support the inference
engine. The objective of phase I algorithm is to derive the
rephasing strategy of laterals and distribution transformers Fig. 3. Three-phase currents and neutral current of Feeder BD31 (winter).
so that the neutral current of whole feeder can be reduced to
be less than the setting limit of LCO protective relay,
which is 70 A in Taipower. After that, the phase II algorithm is neutral current of In becomes larger than 70 A during the time
applied to solve the rephasing strategy for further enhancement periods of 12 PM to 2 PM and 6 PM to 10 PM and it reaches the
of three-phase balance to achieve the minimization of objective peak value of 85 A at 7 PM. The hourly neutral current, which is
function, which is formulated by considering the total system formulated as the phasor summation of three-phase currents, is
power loss cost, the customer service interruption cost and the even larger than the phase current . The service reliability and
labor cost required for the execution of rephasing strategy. By operation efficiency of test feeder BD31 have been deteriorated
this way, the related cost involved in the execution of feeder because of LCO relay tripping and increase of power loss due
rephasing can therefore be justified by the reductions of neutral to three-phase unbalance.
current and system power loss.
III. PROCESS OF REPHASING STRATEGY
II. ANALYSIS OF THREE-PHASE UNBALANCE FOR DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS
FOR DISTRIBUTION FEEDER
To derive the rephasing strategy of distribution transformers
To analyze the three-phase unbalance of distribution systems, and laterals to improve three-phase balance of distribution
the hourly phase currents and neutral currents of distribution feeders, the phase currents and neutral current of all primary
feeders in Taipower have been collected by the Supervisory trunk line sections, laterals and transformers have been sim-
Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) of Distribu- ulated by three-phase load flow analysis according to the
tion Dispatch Control Center (DDCC). Figs. 2 and 3 show the feeder phase currents and neutral current collected by SCADA
daily current profiles of test feeder BD31 for the summer season system. The attributes of distribution components such as line
and winter season, respectively, in 2006. Feeder BD31 serves segments, distribution transformers, etc., have been retrieved
the loads of 1329 residential customers and 87 commercial cus- from the facility database of outage management system (OMS)
tomers as well as one high voltage customers in urban area of in Taipower [7], [8]. The network configuration of distribu-
FengShan. There are 182 OYD transformers and 80 1- trans- tion feeder is then identified after performing the topology
formers applied in this feeder. From Fig. 2, it is found that severe process according to the connectivity attributes of distribution
three-phase unbalance has been introduced because of the dra- components. To represent the load behavior at each bus more
matic difference among three-phase currents. With phase cur- accurately for load flow analysis, the daily load patterns of
rent much less than and , the neutral current of In be- customer classes, which have been derived by load survey study
comes larger than the LCO setting of 70 A during the time pe- [9]–[11], and the monthly energy consumption of customers in
riods of 11 AM to 1 AM and it reaches the peak value of 95 A the database of customer information system (CIS) are used to
at 2 PM for the summer season. During the winter season, the solve the power demand of each customer. The hourly loading
1490
Fig. 4. Flowchart of rephasing strategy of distribution feeders.
of each distribution transformer is then obtained by integrating
the power profiles of all customers served. The three-phase
currents and neutral current of each primary trunk line section
and each lateral are therefore derived by considering the mu-
tual effect between phase conductors in the three-phase load
flow analysis. The objective function for rephasing strategy
of distribution transformers and laterals is then formulated
by including the number of customers affected, the total load
demand interruption and the time duration to complete the
rephasing works by distribution engineers. Fig. 4 shows the
overall process to derive the optimal rephasing strategy to
enhance the three-phase balance of distribution feeders.
A. Facility Database of Outage Management System (OMS)
With voluminous facilities involved for a distribution feeder,
it is very tedious to prepare the input data for three-phase load
flow analysis by using the conventional paper maps and facility
data files. To support load flow analysis for phase balancing
study more effectively, the facility database of OMS system in
Taipower is applied. The OMS database provides the capability
to integrate the graphic representation of components with spa-
tial relationship and information management.
B. Topology Process of Distribution Network
After retrieving the attributes of distribution components
such as line sections, distribution transformers, etc., the
topology process is executed to identify the network configura-
tion of distribution feeders based on the attributes of network
connectivity model and the dynamic switch statuses in the OMS
database. By tracing the FROM and TO fields of connectivity
table of each component, which points to its upstream device
and downstream device, respectively, the system network is
determined and updated according to the operation of line
switches.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 23, NO. 3, AUGUST 2008
Fig. 5. Typical load patterns of residential, commercial, and industrial cus-
tomers.
C. Phase Loading Evaluations of Load Buses
To execute the three-phase load flow analysis for a distribu-
tion feeder, the loading of each load bus has to be evaluated.
With the stochastic variation of customer load characteristics
and load composition, the phase loadings of each distribution
transformer and each high voltage customer will be difficult to
solve. In this paper, the typical daily load patterns of various
customer classes, which have been derived by the load survey
study, are used to represent the load behaviors of all customers
served by the distribution feeder. Fig. 5 shows the typical load
patterns of residential, commercial and industrial customers in
Taipower, which have been derived by statistic analysis of actual
hourly power consumption of customers which have been se-
lected by stratified sampling method for load survey study. After
identify the customers served by each distribution transformer
by executing the customer-to-transformer mapping process, the
monthly energy consumption of each customer served by the
transformer is then retrieved from the Customer Information
System (CIS) database. With the customer load patterns and
monthly energy consumption, the power loading of each trans-
former and high voltage customer is evaluated to represent the
phase loading of each load bus.
D. Phasing Arrangement
For the study of rephasing strategy to enhance three-phase
balance of distribution feeders, the notation (X, Y, Z) is used in
this paper to represent the phasing arrangement of laterals and
distribution transformers. The possible connection schemes
for various types of phasing arrangement are listed in Table I
for the 3- laterals and transformers as well as 1- and OYD
transformers. It is important that same phase sequence (positive
or negative) has to be maintained in the derivation of rephasing
strategy for laterals and distribution transformers to prevent
customer damage due to reverse operation of three-phase ro-
tating loads after rephasing. For instance, an OYD transformer
with the primary side connected to A and B phases (A,B,*)
can only be rephased as B and C phases (*,A,B) or C and A
phases (B,*,A) to ensure same phase sequence for 3- motor
loads connected at the secondary side of the transformer. By
LIN et al.: EXPERT SYSTEM FOR THREE-PHASE BALANCING OF DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS
TABLE I
VALID REPHASING SCHEMES FOR LATERALS AND TRANSFORMERS
Fig. 6. Expert system structure for rephasing strategy of distribution systems.
the same way, a 3- lateral with original phasing (A,B,C) can
be rephasing either as (C,A,B) or (B,C,A) only.
IV. EXPERT SYSTEM FOR REPHASING
A proper rephasing strategy of laterals and distribution trans-
formers to enhance three-phase balancing of distribution feeders
has to comply with the following constraints.
1) The heuristic rules of system planning and operation must
be complied.
2) The neutral current of distribution feeder has to be less than
LCO relay setting after rephasing.
3) The customer service interruption cost due to rephasing
work and the labor cost to perform the rephasing must be
justified by the reduction of system power loss.
As shown in Fig. 6, the expert system is designed by per-
forming the interview with distribution engineers to identify the
heuristic rules currently used for three-phase balancing of dis-
tribution systems in Taipower.
After the heuristic rules for three-phase balancing being em-
bedded in the knowledge base, a two-phase module of neutral
current reduction algorithm is then developed to support the in-
ference engine to derive the optimal rephasing strategy by min-
imizing the objective function. The module will calculate the
reduction of neutral current and the reduction of power loss of
distribution feeder for each rephasing strategy. According to the
practice of distribution systems in Taipower, the rephasing work
can only be executed once a year for each distribution feeder
to reduce the customer service interruption for system relia-
bility concern. Therefore, the expert system will determine the
rephasing strategy based on the heuristic rules and system data
to achieve the reduction of neutral current and system power
1491
loss over one year period, which will be used to justify the cus-
tomer service interruption cost and labor cost for the rephasing
strategy.
A. Heuristic Rules for Rephasing Strategy of Laterals and
Distribution Transformers
After discussion with distribution engineers who are in charge
of three-phase balancing in Taipower, the following heuristic
rules for rephasing of distribution feeders are determined as fol-
lows.
Rule 1)
For any distribution feeder with alarm events activated due to
over neutral current of more than ten times a month, a
rephasing strategy has to be derived.
Rule 2)
Only the laterals which are connected to the primary trunk
sections and the distribution transformers are considered as the
rephasing candidates.
Rule 3)
Same phase sequence has to be maintained after rephasing of
laterals and OYD transformers to prevent the possible damage
of three-phase motor loads due to reverse operation.
Rule 4)
The phase sequence of open-tie switch at the ending point of
the lateral to be rephased has to be adjusted according to the
rephasing of the lateral to prevent the phasing inconsistency for
non-interruptible load transfer.
B. Overall Procedure to Solve the Rephasing Strategy
The following steps are executed to solve the optimal
rephasing strategy of distribution feeders in this paper.
Step 1)
Solve the three-phase currents and neutral current of each
primary trunk line section and each lateral by three-phase load
flow analysis.
Step 2)
Execute the neutral current reduction algorithm (Phase I).
For the distribution feeder with neutral current greater than
, the phase I algorithm as shown in Fig. 7 is applied to
solve the rephasing strategy of laterals and distribution trans-
formers for neutral current reduction. For the candidate lateral
which will result in the largest reduction of neutral current with
will be selected for rephasing. The phase currents
and neutral current In of the upstream trunk sections and
the feeder outlet are then updated according to the rephasing of
the lateral. The process of lateral rephasing is continued until
neutral current of In becomes less than 70 A. Otherwise, the
rephasing of distribution transformers is executed to achieve fur-
ther neutral current reduction.
Step 3)
Execute the neutral current reduction algorithm (Phase II).
1492 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 23, NO. 3, AUGUST 2008

TABLE II
OUTAGE DURATION TIME OF REPHASING WORK

voltage drop at load point ;

maximum voltage drop allowed (5% in Taipower).
1) System Power Loss Cost: After solving the rephasing
strategy by the proposed expert system, the network configu-
ration of distribution feeder is then updated. By executing the
three-phase load flow analysis, the hourly system power loss
is then obtained for the calculation of power loss cost. In this
paper, total system power loss cost consists of both energy loss
cost and demand loss cost. Energy loss (kWh) is determined by
calculating the feeder loss over one year based on the hourly
feeder loading. Demand loss (kW) represents the power loss of
distribution feeder for the annual peak loading. The total loss
cost (TLC) can be formulated as follows:

(2)

where
unit annual demand cost ($112.5/kW-year);
unit energy loss cost ($0.07/kWh);
peak power loss of test feeder;
Fig. 7. Flow chart of neutral current reduction algorithm (Phase I). total annual energy loss of test feeder.
2) Customer Service Interruption Cost (CIC): The CIC rep-
After rephasing of laterals and distribution transformers to resents the customer service interruption cost introduced by the
achieve the reduction of neutral current to be less than the LCO power service outage due to rephasing works of laterals and dis-
setting value of , further rephasing of laterals and dis- tribution transformers as expressed in the following:
tribution transformers are considered in Phase II for power loss
reduction. The objective function is formulated as (1) by consid-
ering the power loss cost over one year, the customer service in- (3)
terruption cost and the labor cost to perform the rephasing of lat-
erals and distribution transformers. The priority list of candidate where
laterals and distribution transformers is then built according to
the reduction of feeder neutral current after rephasing. The lat- total number of nodes affected by rephasing work
eral or the distribution transformer with high priority and com- at node ;
plies with the heuristic rules will be selected for rephasing total interruption cost of customers at node due to
rephasing work at node ;
unit interruption cost of node ($/kW);
outage duration time to complete the rephasing work
Subject to (1) at node ;
where total load demand of node .

rephasing strategy; In Taipower, the outage duration time of rephasing work for a
lateral, an OYD transformer, and a 1- transformer is illustrated
TLC total system power loss cost over one year by in Table II.
applying rephasing strategy ; The unit service interruption costs derived in [12] for the res-
CIC customer service interruption cost; idential, commercial, and industrial are adopted in this paper
to represent in (3). Besides, three different categories of
LC labor cost; key customers with high service priority levels in Table III are
LIN et al.: EXPERT SYSTEM FOR THREE-PHASE BALANCING OF DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS
TABLE III
CATEGORIES OF KEY CUSTOMERS
TABLE IV
LABOR COST OF REPHASING WORK
considered too. The rephasing scheme which involves key cus-
tomers with higher service priority will be issued a higher inter-
ruption cost in the objective function [7].
The customer interruption cost at node by including the key
customers is represented in the following:
(4)
where
Res, Com, Ind, load percentage of residential,
Pri commercial, industrial, and key
customers at node ;
, , , interruption cost function of residential,
commercial, industrial, and key
customers;
priority level of key customers.
3) Labor Cost: The labor cost to execute the rephasing of lat-
erals and distribution transformers is estimated based on the man
power required and the time duration to complete the rephasing
work in Taipower as shown in Table IV.
V. NUMERICAL RESULTS
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the optimal rephasing
strategy proposed by the expert system to enhance three-phase
balance of distribution systems, the test feeder BD31 in Feng-
shan District of Taipower, which is illustrated in Fig. 8, has been
selected for computer simulation. It is a 11-kV overhead feeder
with total length of 21.8 km to serve the mixture loading of
residential and commercial customers. It consists of three ser-
vice zones (T1,T2,T3), two laterals (L1,L2) with 182 units of
OYD transformers and 80 units of 1- transformers to provide
power service to more than 1416 low voltage customers and one
high voltage customers. Because of the usage of so many 1-
and OYD transformers in this feeder, very serious three-phase
unbalance has been introduced as described in Section II. The
1493
rephasing strategy of laterals and distribution transformers has
to be derived so that the neutral current can be reduced to be less
than the LCO relay setting to prevent the feeder from unbalance
tripping.
Based on the actual phase currents and neutral current of test
feeder in Fig. 2, the phase currents of the primary trunk sections
and laterals have been calculated by executing the three-phase
load flow analysis. The three-phase currents and neutral current
of lateral L1 at peak period of 8 PM have been solved as
, , and as show in Fig. 9.
It is found that the current loading of phase C, , is much less
than those of and . The neutral current In is even larger
than , which illustrates the severity of three-phase unbalance
for the lateral.
A. Rephasing Strategy of Test Feeder
Table V shows the rephasing strategies of laterals and distri-
bution transformers solved by executing the two-phase neutral
current reduction algorithm. Fig. 10 shows the phase currents
and neutral currents of the test feeder before and after phase
I rephasing, which have been solved by three-phase load flow
analysis based on the feeder loading in Fig. 2. By rephasing of
lateral L1 from (A,B,C) to (C,A,B), the neutral current has been
reduced from 95 (A) to 67 (A), which implies that the problem
of feeder tripping by LCO protective relay has been solved suc-
cessfully. By comparing to the phase currents in Fig. 2 before
phase I rephasing, the hourly magnitudes of phase current
have been reduced while the magnitudes of phase currents,
and , have been increased, which illustrates the effectiveness
of neutral current reduction by rephasing of lateral L1.
To achieve the power loss reduction by further enhancing the
three-phase balance of test feeder in Fig. 8, Phase II algorithm
for neutral current reduction has been applied to identify the
laterals and distribution transformers for rephasing. It is found
that lateral L2 should be selected for rephasing from (A,B,C)
to (C,A,B) and the OYD transformer at node N87 should be
rephasing from (A,*,C) to (*,C,A). By executing the load
flow analysis for the test feeder with new configuration after
rephasing, the hourly three-phase currents and neutral current
at feeder outlet have been solved as shown in Fig. 11. It is found
that the three-phase unbalance has been improved and the peak
value of neutral current at 2 PM has been reduced from 67 A
to 36 A.
After solving the rephasing strategy for the test feeder in
Table V, Taipower engineers have completed the field works
for rephasing of laterals L1, L2 and the OYD transformer at
location of N87. To verify the effectiveness of the rephasing
strategies derived by the proposed expert system to enhance
three-phase balance of distribution systems, the actual hourly
neutral currents of the test feeder have been collected by the
SCADA system. Fig. 12 shows the hourly neutral currents of
test feeder before and after executing the proposed rephasing
strategy. It is found that the peak value of neutral current has
been reduced from 95 A to 38 A and the average value of daily
neutral current has also been improved from 72 A to 28 A.
Therefore the proposed rephasing strategy solved by the expert
system can therefore reduce the neutral current to enhance the
three-phase balance of distribution feeders.
1494 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 23, NO. 3, AUGUST 2008

Fig. 8. One-line diagram of Feeder BD31 in Taipower.

Fig. 9. Hourly phase currents and neutral current of lateral L1. Fig. 10. Three-phase currents and neutral current of Feeder BD31 after Phase
I rephasing.

To investigate the reduction of feeder power loss by the pro- TABLE V

posed rephasing strategy, the three-phase load flow analysis has PROPOSED REPHASING STRATEGIES FOR FEEDER BD31
been executed for the test feeder before and after rephasing of
laterals and distribution transformers. Fig. 13 shows the loss per-
centage which is defined as the ratio of feeder power loss with
respect to feeder power loading. By executing the rephasing
strategy for the test feeder, the peak power loss has been reduced
from 5.3% to 4.2% at 8 PM and the daily power loss has been im-
proved from 4% to 2.8% after the enhancement of three-phase
balance by rephasing two laterals and one OYD transformers. To
illustrate the cost benefit of rephasing strategy, the total power the labor cost to perform the rephasing work for the test feeder
loss cost reduction, the customer service interruption cost and have been solved as shown in Table VI. The total power loss cost
LIN et al.: EXPERT SYSTEM FOR THREE-PHASE BALANCING OF DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS
Fig. 11. Three-phase currents and neutral current of Feeder BD31 after Phase
II rephasing.
Fig. 12. Neutral current of test feeder before and after rephasing.
Fig. 13. Power loss percentage of test feeder before and after rephasing.
TABLE VI
REDUCTION OF POWER LOSS COST, CUSTOMER SERVICE INTERRUPTION
COST, AND LABOR COST OF THE PROPOSED REPHASING STRATEGY
over one year period has been reduced by $14 000 and the cus-
tomer service interruption cost and the labor cost are $6407 and
$469, respectively, for the executions of the proposed rephasing
strategy.
1495
TABLE VII
NEUTRAL CURRENTS OF FEEDER BD31 AND FEEDER BD32 BEFORE
AND AFTER LOAD TRANSFER FOR SERVICE RESTORATION
B. Enhancement of Load Transfer Capability
by Rephasing Scheme
Besides the reduction of neutral current, the rephasing
strategy can also enhance the capability of load transfer for
service restoration of distribution systems after fault contin-
gency [5], [6], [8]. For the distribution system configuration
of test feeder BD31 in Fig. 8, there is an open-tie switch at
node N202 for load transfer between Feeder BD31 and Feeder
BD32. When a fault occurs at the location of feeder outlet, the
faulted zone is isolated first by opening the circuit breaker of
Feeder BD31. The unfaulted but out of service sections are then
restored by closing the open tie switch at N202 to complete
the load transfer from Feeder BD31 to Feeder BD32. Table VII
shows the neutral currents of both feeders before and after load
transfer. Without performing the rephasing scheme for Feeder
BD31, the neutral current of Feeder BD32 after load transfer
will be increased from 57 A to 149 A, which will activate the
LCO relay to cause service interruption of Feeder BD32. When
the rephasing scheme for both feeders are applied to enhance
three-phase balance in advance, the neutral currents of Feeder
BD31 and BD32 are reduced to be 36 A and 23 A, respectively.
To perform the load transfer for the same fault contingency, the
neutral current of Feeder BD32 after load transfer for service
restoration has been reduced to 55 A and the over neutral
current problem can be prevented effectively.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
To solve the three-phase unbalance problem for distribution
feeders, the optimal rephasing strategy of laterals and distri-
bution transformers has been proposed by applying the expert
system in this paper. The hourly loading of each distribution
transformer and each high voltage customer has been solved ac-
cording to the typical load patterns of customer classes and the
energy consumption of customers served. The attributes of dis-
tribution components are retrieved from the database of outage
management system in Taipower to determine the feeder net-
work topology and to prepare the input data file for computer
simulation. By executing the three-phase load flow analysis, the
phase currents and neutral currents of all service zones, laterals
and primary trunk sections have been derived.
To derive the optimal rephasing strategy to enhance the three-
phase balance of distribution feeders, a two-phase neutral cur-
rent reduction algorithm has been developed by including the
reductions of neutral current, the feeder power loss cost, the
customer interruption cost, and the labor cost to perform the
1496
rephasing of laterals and distribution transformers. To demon-
strate the effectiveness of the expert system to enhance three-
phase balance of distribution systems, a distribution feeder of
Taipower has been selected for computer simulation to derive
the rephasing strategy. By Phase I algorithm, the over neutral
current problem has been solved successfully after rephasing of
one lateral proposed. By Phase II algorithm, the neutral current
has been further reduced by rephasing of another lateral and one
distribution transformer to achieve the system power loss reduc-
tion. After executing the rephasing strategy by Taipower engi-
neers, the phase currents and neutral currents of the test feeder
have been collected by the SCADA system. By comparing to the
phase currents and neutral current before rephasing, the three-
phase balance has been improved significantly by the proposed
rephasing strategy. Besides solving the problem of over neu-
tral current, the customer service interruption cost and the labor
cost to perform the rephasing work can also be justified by the
reduction of system power loss. Moreover, the capability of
load transfer between distribution feeders for service restora-
tion after fault contingency has also been enhanced by applying
the rephasing scheme to improve three-phase balance of distri-
bution systems.
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Chia-Hung Lin (S’95-M’98) received the B.S. degree from National Taiwan
Institute of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1991, the M.S. degree from
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, in 1993, and the Ph.D. degree in elec-
trical engineering from University of Texas at Arlington in 1997.
He is presently a full Professor at National Kaohsiung University of Applied
Sciences, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. His area of interest is distribution automation and
computer applications to power systems.
Chao-Shun Chen (S’81-M’84) received the B.S. degree from National Taiwan
University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1976 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1981 and
1984, respectively.
From 1984 to 1994, he was a Professor in the Electrical Engineering De-
partment at National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. From 1989
to 1990, he was on sabbatical at Empros Systems International. Since October
1994, he has been working as the Deputy Director General of Department of
Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit. From February 1997 to July 1998, he was with
the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology as a Professor. From
August 1998 to January 2008, he was with the National Sun Yat-Sen Univer-
sity as a Professor. Since February 2008, he has been with I-Shou University,
Ta-Hsu Hsiang, Taiwan, R.O.C., as a full Professor. His majors are computer
control of power systems, electrical, and mechanical system integration of mass
rapid transit systems.
Hui-Jen Chuang (S’98-M’02) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical
engineering from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology,
Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1990 and 1992, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung,
Taiwan, in 2002.
He is presently an Associate Professor at Kao Yuan University, Lu Chu,
Taiwan. His research interest is in the area of load flow and power system
analysis of mass rapid system.
Ming-Yang Huang received the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Na-
tional Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1993. He is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering of National Sun Yat-Sen
University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Chia-Wen Huang received the B.S. degree in electronic engineering from Na-
tional Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1972.
He is a Senior Research Engineer of the Power Research Institute of Taipower,
Taipei, Taiwan, and works as the project leader of the Taipower system load
survey and development of master plans for demand-side manager and inte-
grated resource planning.