An heuristic technique for the optimal planning of meshed MV distribution network

One of the main obstacles to the diffusion of the distributed generation (DG) is the actual distribution system structure, that was not built to allocate a large amount of generation. However, many technical and political drives are urging forward a massive penetration of DG, which will ineluctably guide to a radical transformation of the MV distribution networks. One of the changes could be the adoption of a meshed operation. For this reason, in the paper a new optimization algorithm based on heuristic techniques has been developed and implemented in an efficient software package, in order to find the more suitable meshed network arrangement. Moreover, some comparisons with the radial operation are reported to show the potential benefits of changing the operation philosophy in presence of a massive penetration of DG.