Optimization studies and long term plan for the upgrading of ageing city distribution networks

As distribution networks are privatised, the new owners soon find themselves in a position of having to achieve required network performance levels or present a plan (to the regulators) to achieve it. Being private investors, the new owners need to be fully informed of the optimum infrastructure investments to ensure long term sustainable network performance in a competitive environment. Under the above context, this paper presents the work done for the network optimization and long term planning studies for distribution networks of the cities of Delhi and Mumbai in India. The study scope covered: as-is analysis of existing ageing networks, long term planning for next 20 years, applying the "Green Field" approach to the existing networks and a comparison of some four strategies with their immediate and progressive action plans, along with cost estimates and return on investment calculations. The optimization methodology followed in the project is discussed in detail in the paper, covering network details and various strategies. Salient observations and study results are presented in the paper.