The development planning of a distribution network under the background of distributed photovoltaic power integration is the focus of current research. A PSO-based optimization method is proposed in this paper with the aim to evaluate the maximum distributed photovoltaic consumption ability of the distribution network, and its performances are compared with those of the existing analysis methods. The economic evaluation of the distribution network development planning schemes are carried out using the total life cycle cost management method. The total life cycle cost decomposition model of a planning scheme is introduced, and the planning scheme is optimized further by considering an index which is the cost of the improvement of the per-unit photovoltaic consumption ability. The application of the proposed method is explained through specific example. This paper provides a reference for the planning and operation of a distribution network with high penetration of distributed photovoltaic power generations.