Geographical Information Systems as a Tool to Assist the Electricity Distribution Networks Planning

Abstract

In recent years, the population growth in urban areas of Latin American cities has resulted in an increase in demand for electricity in a dispersed manner, bringing challenges to the planning of distribution systems to supply this demand. In addition, incentives for the installation of distributed generation make it necessary to carry out analyzes with a spatial perspective to determine the places of impact in the electricity distribution networks. Geographic information systems are computational tools that allow the processing of data with geographic reference. These systems can collaborate in the visualization of the socioeconomic characteristics and the variables distributed in the zone of study, being able to provide information to the distribution planners. This work shows computational tools that will help distribution utilities, using techniques available in geographic information systems to characterize the local factors in concession zone of the distribution utilities.