Application of geographic information system for substation and feeder planning

In this paper, an effective method is presented to determine the substation siting and feeder planning based on the shortest path. A geographic information system (GIS) with distribution database, state-of-the-art computer graphics and a proposed method are integrated to solve the sizing and siting problems of distribution substations, and to perform feeder routing, including load transfer to the neighbouring substations. A GIS provides an environment for building a database which contains both graphic information and non-graphic facility data. A distribution system of the Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) in Kaohsiung city was selected for the test. It can be shown that the proposed process will provide a physical environment and a friendly man-machine interface (MMI) for planners to perform the distribution planning.