Historical Reliability Evaluation Of Power Distribution Systems Based On Monte Carlo Simulation Method

Abstract

It is crucial to assess power systems' reliability to get the most accurate and appropriate planning, operation, and maintenance decisions. Historical assessment and predictive assessment are widely used methods to assess the reliability of a distribution network. Predictive reliability assessment is classified into two methods, analytical method and simulation method. Besides, analytical methods can be categorized into Markov modeling and network modeling groups (Koster et al., 1978). Simulation methods are considered the most flexible methods. However, it is computationally-burden. Since the historical reliability assessment based on actual data, which is exceptionally crucial in reliability analysis and can be a reference for comparison with other reliability assessment techniques (A. A. Chowdhury, 2005), it is preferable by most utilities rather than a predictive assessment. Thus, the utilities continually need to preserve and collect the data for plans and studies. The actual collected data would improve the system analyses in the future and the system's overall reliability. The significance of reliability studies for utility operators is crucial to determine the parts that are experiencing repeated failures, the areas of the highest amount of energy not supplied, and the areas of weak protection system (Wilson et al., 2006). Many valuable works have been presented on historical reliability assessment (Allan, 1994)(Kim & Singh, 2010)(Baharum et al., 2013)(Abunima et al., 2018). Baharum et al. (Baharum et al., 2013), assessed the historical reliability based on the collected from an electricity distribution company in Baghdad, Iraq, and the two-parameter Weibull function. The statistical measures obtained by this analysis revealed the weakest parts such as transformers and circuit breakers. In (Feng, 2006), the actual data of 13 utilities in Canada are used to perform historical reliability analysis to determine the performance and assess the financial risk for their power distribution networks. Besides, it is established the regulations that are required to specify the reward/penalty levels. In (Wallnerström, 2008), the actual data for one Swedish power distribution network for three years (2004 -2006) are used to perform historical reliability analysis. The obtained result verified that the annual outage cost per customer was more than 500 €. In (A. A. Chowdhury, 2005), the actual data for two Canadian power distribution networks are utilized to improve the performance-based regulation in a deregulated environment to investigate the level of service reliability of these networks.