Investment Prioritizing in Distribution Systems Based on Multi Objective Genetic Algorithm

This paper proposes a project prioritizing method for investment decision in electrical energy distribution networks, based on a multi objective genetic algorithm. This problem is associated with the planning of electrical energy distribution networks, involving specifically the projects prioritization for the determination of an optimized indicative plan of investment in a short term horizon. This plan is obtained from a general list of projects, which takes into account the project costs and some technical characteristics of each feeder under study, such as the number of consumers, the voltage drops and the reliability indexes. It is proposed a heuristic multi objective optimization approach for modeling of this problem, involving both the technique of genetic algorithms and the theory of the Pareto optimal frontier. With this computational implementation, validation tests were performed considering data from a real distribution utility to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed methodology.