Preventive maintenance scheduling of electricity distribution network feeders to reduce undistributed energy: A case study in Iran

Abstract

In today's society, due to the importance of electricity and its vital role in the daily lives of citizens, problems related to shutdown management and reduce the shutdown of subscribers' electricity is one of the important concerns of managers in the field of the electricity industry. On the other hand, it is a key parameter in evaluating the performance of the country's electricity industry, especially electricity distribution companies. The aim of this study is to the scheduling of preventive maintenance on a set of feeders in the Electricity Distribution Company of Ilam Province according to its real-world conditions. In this regard, for the first time, mathematical programming is proposed for the problem. Then, two heuristic algorithms to achieve a good solution in a reasonable time as well as upper and lower bounds are provided. Using a real example, the results of the proposed algorithms were validated. The results of heuristic algorithms were very appropriate and practical due to GAMS's inability to solve large-scale problems. Given that the company currently does not have a specific model for the optimal allocation of feeders, the results of this research can be used to reduce the amount of undistributed energy in the network and subsequently increase subscriber satisfaction.