Multi-criteria decision making for prioritization of Distribution System alternatives in 23 kV

The Paraguayan electricity system in recent years has experienced a marked acceleration in the growth of demand, attributing it to industries, commerce and, above all, to population growth. In this sense, the Paraguayan electricity company ANDE has a program of works for the Generation, Transmission and Distribution of electricity, described in the ANDE Master Investment Plan, required by the National Interconnected System (NIS), which are necessary to meet the current requirements. Particularly, for the Distribution system, new works are contemplated that seek to attend to the expansion of the system and improve the conditions of the electrical service. Said plan includes a program for the feeders that includes the group of works of: expansion, adaptation and reinforcements in the Medium Voltage (MV) networks, for each system: Metropolitan, East, Central, South, North and West. The works of new 23 kV feeders are proposed with the aim of improving the quality of the electricity supply. To achieve this, large economic investments are required, which are generally limited for each system, hence the need to have an adequate prioritization plan for works. In this sense, the present work seeks to identify which are the priority 23 kV feeder works, based on multiple evaluation criteria, which determine the suitability of each work for a system, in this particular case it is the Central System, for the works of year 2021. Therefore, a multi-criteria analysis methodology is proposed, based on the decision-making tool called the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which allows evaluating the proposed alternatives based on criteria and/or selected subcriteria. The study proposes a hierarchical tree within the framework of the problem statement, together with the alternatives selected for the year 2021. With this, it is intended to provide a decision-making tool that allows the works analyzed to be prioritized and collaborate in the field of planning of the Paraguayan electricity company.