Electric Power System Reliability Analysis

Abstract

Reliability is a key aspect of power system design and planning and has been an area of active research for some time now. Reliability studies are performed to maximize the reliability, efficiency, and safety of an electric power system, depending on your particular needs, protective device coordination, short circuit, and load flow studies may be performed and incorporated with the reliability study. In many cases, a reliability study will include a site visit by a field engineer to assess some factors such as: location and placement of surge arresters, transformer sizing and loading data, equipment failure and reliability data, outage restoration and sectionalizing procedures, outage reporting databases. And following the site visit a comprehensive report is submitted discussing the findings and suggesting ways to improve overall reliability of the system. The economics of preventive maintenance and continued operation of older equipment are considered, including downtime, repair costs, and production losses, recommendations may include replacement of marginal equipment and/or equipment approaching the end of its service life. This research presented the basic concepts of power system reliability of the assessment techniques and reliability indices objective. Also formula of calculation and factors affecting of indices are presented and study focused in distribution system. State space approach (Markov method) that can be used to analyze and assessment the reliability of distribution systems is presented and applied to study some cases for the purpose of comparison between the local network (NEC Sudan) and IEEE.