1. A prize collecting Steiner tree approach to least cost evaluation of grid and off-grid electrification systems
- Author
-
Gizem Bolukbasi, Ayse Selin Kocaman, Bölükbaşı, Gizem, and Kocaman, Ayşe Selin
- Subjects
Decision support system ,Operations research ,020209 energy ,Spatial electricity planning ,02 engineering and technology ,010501 environmental sciences ,Minimum spanning tree ,01 natural sciences ,Steiner tree problem ,Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering ,symbols.namesake ,Spatial network ,Electrification ,Prize collecting Steiner tree ,0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering ,Rural electrification ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Civil and Structural Engineering ,Heuristic ,Mechanical Engineering ,Building and Construction ,Grid ,Pollution ,Sub-Saharan africa ,General Energy ,Geography ,symbols ,Network planner - Abstract
The lack of access to electricity in developing countries necessitates spatial electricity planning for guiding sustainable electrification projects that evaluate the costs of centralized systems vis-a-vis decentralized systems. Heuristic approaches have been widely used in such electrification problems to find feasible, cost effective solutions; however, most of the time global optimality of these solutions is not guaranteed. Our paper through its modeling approach provides a new methodology to find the least cost solution to this electrification problem. We model the spatial network planning problem as Prize Collecting Steiner Tree problem, which would be a base for a decision support tool for rural electrification. This new method is systematically assessed using both randomly generated data and real data from rural regions across Sub-Saharan Africa. Comparative results for the proposed approach and a widely used heuristic method are presented based on computational experiments.
- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
- View/download PDF