The planning of power distribution systems consists in determining the optimum site and size of new substations and feeders in order to satisfy the future power demand with minimum investment and operational costs and an acceptable level of reliability. This problem is a combinatorial, non-linear and constrained optimization problem. Several solution methods based on genetic algorithms have been reported in the literature; however, some of these methods have been reported with applications to small systems while others have long solution time. In addition, the vast majority of the ...