Reliability evaluation of distribution network for educational purpose: An analytical approach to results analysis

Abstract

Despite the decade-long development in distribution networks, they are still unable to fulfil society's increasing need for reliable power supply. Investment is necessary for reliability enhancement, which will increase the consumer supply costs. This paper presents a new strategy to enhance the reliability of the network based on network restructuring. This study offers the cost-worth reliability indices, followed by an associated mathematical model with the objective function to reduce the well-known reliability indices Expected Interruption Cost (ECOST) and Energy Not Served (ENS). A Modified Greedy Search Algorithm (MGSA) is introduced to the network optimization for global optimal configuration. Furthermore, to make the model more efficient and realistic, the suggested approach incorporates the effects of fuse failure probability. The impact of the system's islanded operation on the reliability indices is also evaluated. The simulation results show 3.33 % reduction in System Average Frequency Index (SAIFI) as compared with the Fast Adequacy Analysis Method. The results shows that the value of ENS using the proposed MGSA compared to SA and GA improved by 100 %. The application of the proposed strategy on the distribution network connected at BUS-2 of Roy Billinton Test System (RBTS), shows the accuracy and computational effectiveness of the proposed model compared to the state-of-the-art conventional simulation-based topology-variable-based approaches.