Computer network routing is performed based on routing protocol decisions. Open Shortest Path First OSPF is the most known routing protocol. It suffers from congestion problem since it generally uses single (least cost) path to deliver information. Some times OSPF delivers information using more than one path in the case of more than one path have the same cost value. This condition is rarely achieved in normal cases. In this work OSPF is developed to distribute information load across multiple paths and makes load distribution as general case for the routing protocol. The modification supposes no protocol replacement and uses the existing protocol facilities. This makes faster information delivery, load balancing, less congestion, and with little modification on the built in OSPF functions. Disjoint paths are calculated then the costs of the best set of them are adapted using approporate ratio.
Distributed Generation (DG) can help in reducing the cost of electricity to the costumer, relieve network congestion and provide environmentally friendly energy close to load centers. Its capacity is also scalable and it provides voltage support at distribution level. Hence, DG placement and penetration level is an important problem for both the utility and DG owner. The Optimal Power Flow (OPF) has been widely used for both the operation and planning of a power system. The OPF is also suited for deregulated environment. Four different objective functions are considered in this study: (1) Improvement voltage profile (2) minimization of active power loss (3) maximum capacity of conductors (4) maximization of reliability level. The site and size of DG units are assumed as design variables. The results are discussed and compared with those of traditional distribution planning and also with Imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA). Key words: Distributed generation, distribution network planning, multi-objective optimization, and Imperialist competitive algorithm.