Software

LAP: Low Voltage Electrification Analysis and Planning

LAP is a software tool for technical and economical evaluation of Low Voltage electrification projects. After calculating the electrical behavior of the LV network (currents, voltages, losses, etc.), LAP generates the bill of materials of necessary investments. Considering on one hand the costs of such investments and for network operation, and on the other hand the revenues from the consumers, LAP presents an optimized economic balance of the project. Results obtained for several sites (villages) can be aggregated to obtain an overall balance at regional level.

For a guided tour of the software, we suggest you an animated presentation of LAP.

The data

Services

The objective of electrification of a site is to build or to reinforce a LV network for supplying power to the "services" (consumers) of that site. A library allows the user to define several types of services, each one characterized by its technico-economic parameters: power demand, daily load profile, tariff, etc). In rural areas, a service also requires the installation of the in-house equipment such as cables, connection- and distribution boards, lamps, plugs and switches.

Power sources

Five types of power sources are considered:

• MV/LV substations
  These are typical distribution transformers feeding a LV network from the grid.
• Diesel plants
  A Diesel group is composed of a motor/generator set, buildings, LV and auxiliary equipment, and a fuel tank offering autonomy for a specified duration.
• Wind generators
  Wind generators can be coupled to the Diesel plants as a renewable energy source in order to reduce the fuel consumption.
• Hydro micro-stations
  The power delivered by Hydro turbines is determined from the water head and the available flow rate.
• Solar Home Systems (SHS)
  A Solar Home System is composed of a photovoltaic module, batteries offering the required autonomy, an energy manager (battery charger), and possibly a power inverter if AC power is required. Such SHS are generally used to provide power to those services (houses) that are too far away from the LV distribution network.

Several power sources of different type can be used in a study, each one feeding its own LV network. LAP assists the user to determine the best location of the power source(s).

The LV network

Services are supplied by a distribution network that is fed by a MV/LV substation, a Diesel plant or a micro-hydro station. The network is composed of LV lines of several types: underground cables or aerial lines on poles or walls. LAP optimizes cable sections and pole selection according to the electric power flow, mechanical constraints and cost. It also selects appropriate accessories for cable suspension, earthing, etc.

Public lighting is by separate network feeders or combined with the distribution lines. In rural sites, supply of services by solar home sets (SHS) is also considered.

Equipment and service catalogs

The equipment available for services, sources and the LV distribution network is defined in catalogs. These catalogs contain all technical and economical data (acquisition cost, installation costs, operations and maintenance costs, life time, etc.) that allow to:

• determine the technical and economical optimal solution for the electrification of the village or urban suburb
• prepare the economic balance of installationand operating costs, on one hand, and the generated revenues on the other hand.

Man Machine Interface

The user communicates with the software through three interface types:

Equipment library

Technical and economical characteristics of equipment and services are introduced using typical data forms. They are organized in a classic Windows tree view offering a very user friendly and intuitive user interface.

Geographical Information System (GIS)

For all graphical aspects, LAP uses a powerful GIS interface based on MapObjects^® from ESRI. It allows to import maps and schemas of regions and sites. Geodata in shapefile format can be directly visualized. Other typical file formats such as JPEG, AutoCAD^® DWG, etc. can also be imported. Then, using these maps as a background, the user indicates the location and type of services to be supplied, location and type of the power sources, the right-of-ways of the LV distribution network, as well as the location and type of services to be supplied by SHS systems.

After calculation of the electrification network, the same GIS interface is used to display the results for analysis: selected sizes of the power sources, location and types of poles, voltage drops at each location, sections and lengths of LV cables, power flow in each line section, etc. The final layout may be printed or exported to AutoCAD^®.

Reports

In addition to the results shown in the GIS interface, two types of reports are available:

• Reports with pre-defined format and contents provide electrical data for every line and various bills of material.
• Reports directly exported as Microsoft^® Excel tables. Using Excel, the user can easily modify the spreadsheet - if necessary - before printing it or before exporting it to any other document, such as Microsoft^® Word for instance. The user may define the contents of these reports using various options presented in a user-friendly interface.

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