Effective rural electrification via optimal network: Optimal path-finding in highly anisotropic search space using multiplier-accelerated A* algorithm

United Nations' 7th Sustainable Development Goal envisions the availability of modern energy for everyone by 2030. While the progress has been satisfactory in the last few years, further rural electrification is increasingly challenging. The current mainstream approach of electrifying villages individually is becoming cost-ineffective due to uncertainties in both resource availability and energy demand for small, difficult-to-reach, residences. A networked rural electrification model, i.e. a cost-optimized network connecting villages and generation facilities, could improve resources utilization, reliability and flexibility. However, determining optimal paths with common search algorithms is extremely inefficient due to complex topographic features of rural areas. This work develops and applies an artificial intelligence search method to efficiently route inter-village power connections in the common rural electrification situation where substantial topological variations exist. The method is evolved from the canonical A* algorithm. Results compare favorably with optimal A* results, at significantly reduced computational effort. Furthermore, users can adaptively trade-off between computation speed and optimality and hence quickly evaluate sites and configurations at reasonable accuracy, which is impossible with classical methods.