Territory concept to improve transmission expansion planning problem solution algorithms.

This paper is devoted to solving Transmission Expansion Planning (TEP) problems, via a Constructive Heuristic Algorithm (CHA) that can be employed as a subroutine in a meta-heuristic procedure. In such a strategic methodology, CHA may improve the quality of trial solutions that speed up the convergence of the main algorithm. By introducing a "territory concept" for each derived local optimum, this paper proposes an approach, forcing CHA sub-procedures to explore new areas in the problem sub-space. Such modification is enforced on the Villasana-Garver-Salon (VGS) algorithm, as a well-known kind of CHA, to improve its performance. The improved VGS is called Territory-Based VGS (TBVGS). In order to evaluate the performance of TBVGS, it is implemented on a meta-heuristic algorithm in which the performance of the obtained meta-heuristic algorithm is examined with different standard test systems, as well as practical cases. Simulation studies and result analysis show a promising improvement in the computational efficiency of the algorithm and, even more importantly, in finding a higher quality set of TEP local optimums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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