Energies, Vol. 19, Pages 1526: Accelerating Mini-Grid Development: An Automated Workflow for Design, Optimization, and Techno-Economic Assessment of Low-Voltage Distribution Networks
Energies doi: 10.3390/en19061526
Authors:
Ombuki Mogaka
Nathan G. Johnson
Gary Morris
James Nelson
Abdulrahman Alsanad
Vladmir Abdelnour
Elena Van Hove
Reliable and efficient low-voltage distribution networks are critical for scaling mini-grid deployment and advancing universal electricity access, yet prevailing design practices remain manual, heuristic, and difficult to scale. This study presents a fully automated workflow that integrates geospatial feature extraction, distribution network layout, conductor sizing, mixed-integer linear programming-based phase balancing, nonlinear AC power flow validation, and system costing to generate rapid, standard-compliant techno-economic designs for greenfield mini-grid sites. The methodology is demonstrated across 62 rural sites to confirm practicality for large-scale rural electrification planning. Designs were evaluated for single-phase, three-phase, and hybrid low-voltage configurations. When design constraints were relaxed, single-phase networks achieved the lowest median voltage drop (~0.8%) and technical losses (~0.6%); however, under realistic voltage-drop and ampacity limits, compliance relied on conductor oversizing, resulting in low utilization (median loading <20%) and substantially higher costs. Fewer than half of the sites met construction feasibility limits for parallel conductors, and single-phase designs were typically 3–4× more expensive than multi-phase alternatives. Multi-phase layouts delivered comparable technical performance at significantly lower cost. Phase-balancing optimization reduced voltage drop by 15–20% and current unbalance by ~50%, enabling loss reduction and increased load accommodation. Overall, the results demonstrate that automated low-voltage network design can replace manual drafting with scalable, data-driven workflows that reduce soft costs while improving technical performance, constructability, and investment readiness.