Bello Sunday Raji’s scientific contributions

The distribution system is the largest segment of the electrical power system and the final stage in delivering electricity to consumers. It experiences power losses which could be technical or non-technical due to its radial configuration and connected components. Technical losses occur as energy dissipation in the form of heat in the system components, which is unavoidable. It affects the efficiency of the system and increases operational costs. Therefore, the reduction is essential for adequate power supply and improvement in utility revenue generation. This study focuses on reducing power losses on 11 kV Taiwo distribution feeder in Ilorin using the Network reconfiguration approach. The feeder was modelled, and its power losses were evaluated based on the Backward Forward Sweep method suitable for the radial network. The reconfigured network was optimised using the Particle Swarm Optimisation technique. The study shows that the values of feeder real power losses before and after reconfiguration are 176.883 kW and 121.972 kW, respectively.Further improvement was, however, achieved when PSO was used for the reconfiguration, as the power loss value stands at 98.465 kW. This is 44.33 % reduction compared to the initial power loss value and 19.273 % after reconfiguration. Furthermore, the values of the reactive power losses before and after reconfiguration are 9.474 kVar and 6.527 kVar, respectively, amounting to a 31.11 % reduction. However, PSO reduces the value to 3.101 kVar, which is 67.27 % of the initial value. Thus, radial distribution network reconfiguration using PSO has proven to be a robust method for reducing power loss in the distribution network.

Electrical energy is usually generated long distances from the load centres; therefore, it needs an extensive network of conductors to bring it to the consumers. Due to the long distance covered by these conductors, power losses occur in the distribution system. Power losses affect the system's efficiency, reducing grid reliability, voltage instability, needless switchgear tripping, and blackouts. Power losses could be technical and non-technical. Technical losses are inherent due to the component on the distribution network; thus, it is unavoidable and can only be reduced, not eliminated. This paper evaluates the power loss on the 11 kV Igosun distribution feeder, Offa, Kwara State using the backward forward sweep algorithm implemented in MATLAB platform. The data, extracted from the feeder's topology, were used to calculate the corresponding real and reactive power load at the respective buses. The results show a total real power loss of 873.5688 kW and a total reactive power loss of 504.3703 kVAR on the feeder. The knowledge of the feeder's power losses will benefit electric power utilities to improve the quality of the power supply and revenue generation.