Heuristic Methodology for Planning AC Rural Medium-Voltage Distribution Grids

Oscar Danilo Montoya, Federico Martin Serra, Cristian Hernan De Angelo, Harold R. Chamorro and Lazaro Alvarado-Barrios
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Oscar Danilo Montoya: Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Bogotá 110231, Colombia
Federico Martin Serra: Laboratorio de Control Automático (LCA), Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad Nacional de San Luis—CONICET, San Luis 5730, Argentina
Cristian Hernan De Angelo: Grupo de Electrónica Aplicada (GEA), Facultad de Ingeniería, Instituto de Investigaciones en Tecnologías Energéticas y Materiales (IITEMA)—CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto, Córdoba 5800, Argentina
Harold R. Chamorro: Department of Electrical Engineering at KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Lazaro Alvarado-Barrios: Department of Engineering, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, 41704 Sevilla, Spain

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 16, 1-20

Abstract: The optimal expansion of AC medium-voltage distribution grids for rural applications is addressed in this study from a heuristic perspective. The optimal routes of a distribution feeder are selected by applying the concept of a minimum spanning tree by limiting the number of branches that are connected to a substation (mixed-integer linear programming formulation). In order to choose the caliber of the conductors for the selected feeder routes, the maximum expected current that is absorbed by the loads is calculated, thereby defining the minimum thermal bound of the conductor caliber. With the topology and the initial selection of the conductors, a tabu search algorithm (TSA) is implemented to refine the solution with the help of a three-phase power flow simulation in MATLAB for three different load conditions, i.e., maximum, medium, and minimum consumption with values of 100%, 60%, and 30%, respectively. This helps in calculating the annual costs of the energy losses that will be summed with the investment cost in conductors for determining the final costs of the planning project. Numerical simulations in two test feeders comprising 9 and 25 nodes with one substation show the effectiveness of the proposed methodology regarding the final grid planning cost; in addition, the heuristic selection of the calibers using the minimum expected current absorbed by the loads provides at least 70% of the calibers that are contained in the final solution of the problem. This demonstrates the importance of using adequate starting points to potentiate metaheuristic optimizers such as the TSA.

Keywords: distribution system planning; tabu search algorithm; minimum spanning tree; heuristic optimization methodology; rural distribution networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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