Zaenal Abidin, Rudi Nurdiansyah, Effendi Mohamad
Indonesia has great potential to develop marine current power plants due to stable tidal currents, especially in the Riau Strait. A key challenge is to design an underwater cable network connecting turbines that minimizes total cable length, reducing costs and energy losses. This paper compares two methods for solving cable network optimization: Kruskal's algorithm, a classical and fast graph theory method, and Differential Evolution, a modern population-based optimization algorithm. Results show that Kruskal's algorithm quickly finds the optimal cable layout with a total length of 5,570.95 meters in just 0.0033 seconds, while Differential Evolution consistently achieves the same solution with an average computation time of 370.22 seconds over ten runs. This study suggests that Kruskal's algorithm is highly suitable for practical applications requiring rapid computation, while Differential Evolution offers flexibility for more complex or multi-objective problems. © 2025 IEEE.
Universitas Negeri Malang, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Malang, Indonesia; Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Faculty of Industrial and Manufacturing Technology and Engineering, Melaka, Malaysia
