A decision support tool for rural electrification grid design

This paper investigates the optimization of the electricity grid network in rural community of Chegutu district, in Zimbabwe. The Kruskal's algorithm is used to minimize the total distance of the network connections, thus optimise resources for carrying out projects. Rural Electrification Agency has been failing to meet their targets for extension of the electricity grid network because of shortage of resources and input capital, thus this research adopts the idea of network optimization as a way of saving resources so that they can be used for other projects. The optimisation process shows that a total of 74km of 11kV power line could be saved from the network.