Place Distribution Poles 20180925-0925

Run this computational tool to place the following components of a grid:

• Distribution Poles
• Distribution Lines

The algorithm makes the following optimizations:

• Place distribution poles near roads when it is more cost effective to do so.
• Avoid pole obstacles when placing distribution poles.
• Avoid line obstacles when placing distribution lines.

Relevant Industries

• Energy > Grid

Target Applications

• Grid Extension Design

Pricing Notes

• Pricing is on a per-site basis.
• Please contact billing@crosscompute.com for special rates.

Usage Notes

• Choose a sufficient amount of memory and time to run the algorithm.
• You can influence the algorithm to put more poles near roads by increasing Off Road Cost Multiplier.
• It is a good idea to run the algorithm multiple times because you are likely to have slightly different results each time due to random sampling.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the following groups that made this work possible:

• CrossCompute
• American Public Power Association
• Electric Vine
• Powerhive
• Quadracci Sustainable Engineering Lab

Geography

The algorithm expects an attribute called demand or demand_in_kwh_per_day for each customer (see Electricity).

• Customers must be polygons or points.
• Roads must be lines.
• Pole obstacles must be polygons.
• Line obstacles must be polygons.
• Poles must be points.

Layout

Cost

Algorithm